Is anyone else concerned by the state of the industry?

Jeff Bezos is on track to surpass Bill Gates as the wealthiest man in tech. Amazon has a history of questionable actions (look up Nucleus, Diapers.com, BookSurge, MacMillan vs Amazon, and Hachette).

They are known to have a strong lobbying presence and often pay lower wages than their competitors.

I buy from Amazon because I like their service and prices (not always the cheapest, but arguably the best buying experience), but with every purchase I can't help but wonder what I'm contributing to.
It's obvious small tech companies struggle to survive and that is the result of our consumption.

the invisible hand has a middle finger

@xalez could you elaborate?

@GhostInTheShell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

@xalez I suppose I understand, I know of the invisible hand. We've made things easier and cheaper through consumer habit, but the system derived from our habit is not inherently "good" nor "neutral"?

@GhostInTheShell that's what I meant by the middle finger. It is a useful system, but not without it's risks and dangers
I don't know about Amazon, but generally, while self interest motivates people to get better, make nicer and cheaper stuff, it also motivates them to take shortcuts and exploit people's irrationailities

the danger with the internet is that it's more inclined to the winner takes all scenario. If one company is a bit better than competitors, it gets more money from all over the world, and so is able to be even better, and so makes more money, etc. and only a paradigm shifting innovation from a competitor breaks this cycle. But then *that* competitor wins all, and so on
I think this situation is unique in history, and how it turns out is yet to be seen