Amazon has monopolized e-commerce for years, but the question is how do they get away with it? Apple is competitive with Samsung, Walmart has Target, and Amazon competes with…well nobody. With no real competition in sight, Amazon has dominated telemarketing and has used the COVID-19 pandemic to expand. When millions of people lost their jobs, Amazon employed 427,300 additional workers in a short 10 months! Economists and corporate historians said that the closest comparison to this type of mass hiring was done by entire industries during wartime in the 20th century. Amazon, being quick-witted, played the hero card, concealing their desire to expand as a mere act of kindness to help out the people who lost their jobs. But this was no charity, as Amazon has expanded their workforce to a monstrous 1.2 million worldwide, while closing in on other industries.
As Amazon expands, they are killing competition as a result. A few examples are their launching of Amazon Prime Video in 2016, which heavily competes with Netflix as a top streaming platform. Their purchase of Whole Foods in 2017, putting them in a top position in the supermarket industry, allows customers to have easy online access to food—which comes in handy during a global crisis. They even bought Ring in 2018, where they now own the top innovative home surveillance operative, which links to your cell phone, and the list goes on. Amazon can easily be called a monopoly and increased growth could alter the globalized economy we have today. Amazon is creating a new type of super monopoly that we have never seen before, as they are monopolizing more than one, or even two major industries. While the pandemic wreaks havoc on big businesses like J.C. Penny, Lord & Taylor, and Guitar Center that were once seen as untouchable, Amazon has thrived, with earnings up 37% and revenue through its first three quarters at $260 billion. This new type of super monopoly that Amazon has created can be detrimental to the capitalistic ideals that we encounter everyday.