Amazon’s Antitrust Case Evokes the Fate of Sears, Rise of Walmart

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finally pulled the trigger this week, filing its much-anticipated antitrust complaint against Amazon for (among other things) using pricing and other tactics that unfairly punished merchants selling on its platform. “Amazon is now exploiting its monopoly power to enrich itself,” according to FTC chair Lina Khan. I’m no legal analyst, but as an expert in the retail industry, I’m scratching my head over the notion that—especially in this digital age—any retailer could create, let alone maintain, a true monopoly. For one thing, retailers that used...