A third party in commerce refers to a situation where business is transacted and the entity who Paris buys from never actually holds title to the product. Consumers mostly buy through Amazon but people do also buy from Amazon which is part of what makes it confusing I often say Amazon sort of grafted an eBay onto a Walmart while making it look like a Walmart online anyway so Bezos had this idea in the 90s of wanting to be an e-commerce intermediary starts by selling books first party Amazon sells it themselves.
Paris Marx is joined by Moira Weigel to discuss the third-party sellers who supply many of the goods sold through Amazon, how the company’s policy decisions reshape small businesses to act like mini-Amazons, and what that means for regulatory responses.
Moira Weigel is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern University, a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School, and a founding editor of Logic Magazine. Her most recent book is Voices from the Valley: Tech Workers Talk about What They Do--And How They Do It, co-edited with Ben Tarnoff. Follow Moira on Twitter at @moiragweigel.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.
Also mentioned in this episode:
Support the show