All I know is that the cost of Prime keeps increasing, the video content is lackluster, and the last six (!!) things I ordered they either sent the wrong thing, the order was lost in transit, or the item that arrived was clearly counterfeit junk. I live in rural America where retail is essentially dead, but the internet is a big place and I'd rather pay a bit more and know what I'm getting rather than the roulette wheel that Amazon has become for so many items.
> The company attributed the loss largely to a $7.6 billion loss from its investment in electric automaker Rivian Automotive. Rivian, into which Amazon led a $700 million investment in 2019, has seen its stock plummet more than 75% since its blockbuster November 2021 IPO.<p>Some useful context.
I used to start most of my online shopping at Amazon, over the years the quality of curation has gotten significantly worse as junk has flooded the platform and “Amazon’s choice” seems like it might as well just be the thing they sell the easiest. The reviews are close to worthless, so the shopping experience is very low signal.<p>I’ve pretty much stopped buying off of Amazon.
I don't know why, I guess it is because I am on a VPN, but the process when I want to log in to Amazon is:<p>Enter username, which takes me to a different screen<p>Enter password, which takes me to a different screen<p>Enter password again, along with solving a puzzle where sometimes I can't even tell what the puzzle is asking. But if I do, it takes me to a different screen<p>Enter a code that is emailed to me asking me to authorize the computer<p>If I actually get the code in my email and enter the code, the page eventually reloads, and I am allowed to purchase items from Amazon!<p>I consider this to be a feature, since I want to use Amazon less and at each step I become more likely to wonder if there isn't anywhere else I can purchase the item that I really don't need anyway.
In a few of the financial centres, seemingly led by New York, companies are pressuring mostly reluctant staff to come back in for trumped up reasons that a cynic might boil down to "come back or a bunch of sandwich and coffee shops will fail". It would be ironic if this return was instead undermining much bigger fish.<p>Clearly the return to work isn't behind all of Amazon's woes, but anecdotally people i know are spending less online in part because: they aren't there to receive items so easily, they waste time in other ways now (idle hands -> more OneClick impulse purchases) and they're feeling the pinch having extra expenses from the commute and lunches near offices all add up.<p>I ordered a UPS battery the other day and realised i hadn't bought anything from Amazon in two months and I'd barely missed it and seen very few attempts by them to check if they could tempt me back. The shift was dramatic, having averaged weekly Amazon purchases during the pandemic.
Earlier discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31197559" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31197559</a><p>That post is based on Q1/2022 earnings press release. Note that that's <i>not</i> an SEC 10-K. I'd favour third-party reports over Amaozon's own nonregulatory PR.
A lot this loss is due to changes in the value of rivian stock. Should that go back up (which is most likely won't) then it'll trigger a gain and higher EPS during another quarter in terms of GAAP. Of course we're ignoring operating results and cash flows here.