http://seekingalpha.com/article/216...zon-com-saga?isDirectRoadblock=false&uprof=51
"The profitability myth
In the end, it all comes down to the profit myth. The profit myth is the one that states that Amazon.com was able to be more profitable in the past, so it will be more profitable in the future. Hence, if you just apply a larger margin percentage to the expanded sales base, you can justify just about anything.
This "Amazon has proven profitability in the past" belief is the key to the profitability myth around Amazon.com. The myth states that Amazon.com can have lots of profits ⦠later on.
I have already shown, however, that Amazon.com's profitability decline is structural and tied to its sales mix. I've shown that even with unchanged assumptions regarding the profitability of each of Amazon.com's main segments, we can produce a model that closely predicts Amazon.com's profitability over the last 6 years, including both the periods were Amazon.com was more profitable, and its recent unprofitability.
Thus, Amazon.com's profitability did not fall because of investments or a conscientious option. It fell because its sales mix changed, from a sales mix heavy in higher-margin media, to a sales mix heavy in lower-margin EGM. And since the previous sales mix is not coming back, the higher levels of profitability are not coming back, either....."
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And going back to the "Why is Bezos rich if he is a bad business man?" argument, the answer is because he is like Madoff. He was rich too, but that didn't mean he knew how to invest or trade....