Elon's comment to spin up Amazon competitor isn't a fluke... Amazon has major problems...Amazon has become a Chinese flea market operating inside an American distribution empire... 55.9% of its top 10,000 sellers are now China based...

x.com ^ | October 15, 2026 | Observing Consciousness @holonabove

[ransomnote]

Brian Cates - Political Columnist & Pundit reposted
Observing Consciousness
@holonabove
·
2h
Elon's comment to spin up Amazon competitor isn't a fluke... Amazon has major problems...

Amazon has become a Chinese flea market operating inside an American distribution empire... 55.9% of its top 10,000 sellers are now China based, while American entrepreneurs invest in developing products, building brands, proving demand and creating the very markets that overseas competitors move in to capture...

The pattern is well documented... an American inventor develops something successful, Chinese knockoffs flood the marketplace, prices collapse, original listings get hijacked, and fraudulent intellectual property complaints can even force legitimate sellers offline...

Forearm Forklift watched revenue and American jobs disappear, Drop Stop fought Chinese made patent infringement, PopSockets took its counterfeit problems to Congress, and federal investigations have exposed fraudulent takedowns and insiders manipulating seller accounts...

All inside a marketplace where Amazon controls visibility, advertising, enforcement and access to the customer, collecting $172 billion in seller services and another $68 billion in advertising revenue annually...

Now Elon Musk suggests building an Amazon competitor after reports of Amazon blocking Grok purchasing bots... and suddenly this connects directly into the larger architecture I've been mapping around American manufacturing, tariffs, the elimination of de minimis exemptions, autonomous logistics, alternative financial rails and Super Intelligence (SI)...

Imagine verified American manufacturers connected directly to consumers through intelligent purchasing agents that authenticate product origins, protect intellectual property, compare actual value and bypass the machinery that allows innovators to be displaced inside their own marketplace...

With X potentially providing discovery, Grok providing intelligence and an entirely new commerce network connecting production, payments and delivery...

The implications reach far beyond Amazon... China has leveraged America's retail infrastructure to reach American consumers at extraordinary scale, while American innovators have become increasingly dependent on the same platform that exposes them to imitation and marketplace abuse...

I've been mapping the rebuilding of America's sovereign industrial stack from production through distribution... Musk's comment opens another potential front, connecting that machinery directly to the American household...

America creates the product... the next battle is over who controls the marketplace, the purchasing decision and ultimately the economic value of American innovation...

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[ansel12]

I find incredible deals at Amazon, especially on food and electronics.

[Buttons12]

The only way I’ll go to Facebook is to shop for “home goods” (furniture, antiques, etc.) and to check real estate sales — all strictly within a range of no more than 40 miles. Wouldn’t think of buying a car from Facebook, or anything with upholstery — love old furniture but I’m not crazy. Amazon is good for books, but once I spot what I want I will always see if I can find it online or via an interlibrary loan; buying it from Amazon is not the best choice. Amazon is best for window shopping — as in, “look there, then buy elsewhere.” And for vitamins they’re awful but so is everywhere else, nearly all of it is from China or “globally sourced.” For cheap stuff — Walmart.
Not happy with these choices, but options are limited.
Study Mandarin, we’re gonna need it.

[Inyo-Mono]

What in the World is a “Grok bot,” and how (or why) would one use it to order on Amazon?

[AlaskaErik]

I’m in. Amazon sucks.

[Antoninus]

Never, ever, ever purchase a product from Amazon that is sourced from China. Sometimes, it says it in the reviews/questions. Always check.

[House Atreides]

I learned a long time ago NOT to buy miscellaneous Apple products (e.g., cables, chargers, adapters) from Amazon sellers because they turn out to be cheap, low quality look-alike knockoffs instead of actual quality Apple products. I just order directly from the Apple Store now.

[T.B. Yoits]

Retailers complained that Amazon was taking the retailer's products to Chinese companies to make lower price versions but sell at a higher margin to customers.

Amazon's margins went up but their sales dropped as those retailers set up their own online shopping.

They should have learned from Lycoming who builds aircraft engines but won't build airplanes, because they don't want to compete with their own customers.

[Mister Tee]

I hope he does. I’m pretty tired of the Chinese crap that Amazon is selling to the detriment of American innovators and entrepreneurs. If Elon does put together an Amazon competitor, there should be company standards that put American goods first, lower the percent that it charges the sellers, add an online fee to Chinese goods, check to see if the Chinese item is an illegal copy of an American product, etc. I’d sign up in a heartbeat!

[Jane Long]

🛰️🚀 B☄️☄️M 🚀🛰️

[ansel12]

Here is something on that.

“Are the Apple products on Amazon real?

Yes, if you’re looking at the official Apple store on Amazon. Amazon is an officially authorized Apple reseller. So are a number of its competitors including Adorama, B&H, Walmart, Target and Best Buy.

Amazon struck a deal with Apple in late 2018 to be become an Apple Authorized Reseller, meaning it gets the devices directly from Apple and Apple has given it the green light to sell them. Effectively, it’s almost just exactly the same as buying Apple devices directly from Apple.”

https://www.gearpatrol.com/tech/a37134997/should-you-buy-apple-devices-on-amazon/

[Libloather]

(I am NOT fat just tall )

Would look okay on a 5X.

[Mariner]

Chinese flea market...a moniker that will stick.

[Da Coyote]

As usual, Musk nails it. I have referred to Amazon as Chinazon for a few years now. Howz about us requiring Zon to label the Communist country of origin on all of their products?

[Seruzawa]

Amazon is chock full of Chinese counterfeits. And others. Not just China does that. I ordered some iridium spark plugs for my Corolla and they were counterfeits. Amazon would do nothing.

[Seruzawa]

Lots of printer cartridges are counterfeits. Sold as 10,000 copy cartridges and only get 3-4,000.

[Dr. Sivana]

Now also imagine prices 60% higher.

Where did you come up with that number? It depends on the item. I have had no problem finding that Red Chinese eye glasses and shoes can cost as much as non-ChiCom counterparts.

In some cases, when the U.S. product costs more, there is also more value. (e.g. Red Wing work boots). If a lot of manufacturing is reshored, there will be a range of products at every price point. The low end will cost a little more, to be sure. You do save transport costs, and maybe a few people on the dole right now will get jobs making that stuff, which has benefits for society besides the paycheck. Most of us Freepers are older. We can remember when building supplies, most appliances, some clothes, fertilizer, pharmaceuticals, pet food, were made in the U.S., and almost NOTHING was coming from Red China (free Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even Japan were low cost suppliers). We were able to afford stuff then. We can go back to something closer to that.

[catnipman]

NEVER, EVER buy a digital memory product from an amazon 3rd party seller ... everything they sell is either some no-name brand, counterfeit and/or factory rejects ... this includes SD cards, SSDs, RAM, backup devices, etc.

only consider buying brand name memory products sold by and shipped by amazon ... period ...

all the rest is crap, they MIGHT seem to function as first, but will quickly slow down to a crawl and or simply fail to work after a while ...

often, i’ll buy from Best Buy, because i know they’ll at least be selling legitimate products ...

[Jamestown1630]

I won’t buy clothes from China. The fabric quality and sizing are awful. And it seems their hardware items are really substandard. (They can’t even make bobby pins like the ones we used to get from American companies; but so many American companies aren’t making certain things anymore.)

In general, most things I’ve bought from Amazon have been satisfactory; but I do a lot of review-reading and searching and I just won’t buy certain classes of things from Chinese companies.

[Jamestown1630]

I’ve had great experiences with Chewy.

[4Runner]

In auto parts alone cheap knock-offs have caused the price of OEM-quality components to skyrocket.