Amazon's Antitrust Paradox

Lina Khan argues that modern antitrust law's emphasis on short-term prices and consumer welfare can fail to detect the power of dominant digital platforms. Amazon's strategy of prioritizing growth over near-term profit, she writes, allowed the company to sustain losses, price below cost and expand across markets in ways that a price-centered test may interpret as beneficial even while the underlying market structure becomes less competitive.

The article examines the power Amazon gains by operating both a marketplace and the infrastructure on which other businesses depend, including access to seller data and the ability to favor its own products and services. Khan considers two responses: restoring a structural approach to antitrust that limits conflicts and market concentration, or treating dominant platforms as common carriers with duties of neutrality and nondiscrimination.