Ironically for Amazon this could be viewed in two ways.
Good way:
Wow they are doing great. (Normal)
Bad way:
oh no they need to be broken up.(regulators) Or
Oh no they can’t possibly grow more than this.
(Analysts)
If this is true expect a lot of third party news upcoming to deflect the regulator narrative.
I would bet money on the “bad way” interpretation @rickwatson, especially in this environment.
The logical way to “break up” Amazon wouldn’t help retailers all that much, I don’t think. I think the major parts get carved up vs. it becoming a “baby Bell” scenario of multiple, smaller Amazons all in the same business.
I don’t think breaking up Amazon materially changes consumer behavior, mainly because I think that Amazon.com becomes a 3P only site supported by Ads and FBA. The 1P piece spins out and is easily replaced by other 3P Sellers. Maybe fees increase for Sellers to deal with perhaps paying a marked up price to AWS to avoid replicating/splitting all of that infrastructure.
Agree w/ Tim here. Consumer behavior and expectations have changed already. I think breaking up Amazon at this point would be a bit “too little, too late” … they’ve already built their moat through the years that other retailers would kill for with the aid of the cash thrown off from AWS (the logical carve out). Doing sow now might tighten the purses a bit (maybe they wouldn’t make another MGM buy), but probably not materially. Marketplace + Logistics, Prime, Video, Ads… they will all self-fund themselves going forward.