I don't know a lot about finance, but I've learned a few things. In the past stocks paid dividends, so that people would pay attention to how much they would "make" from each stock they owned. That does not appear to be the case today. At least not often.

Also, today's big "listed" companies are often not profitable or are only sporadically so. They gain "market capitalization" via their stock and are basically, imo, faking it until they make it as far as actually selling valuable products or services.

I love to hate Amazon. I think they are putting regular retailers and America based on line sellers out of business and they are parasitizing our country in the process.

Imagine how many people buy Amazon stock, not based upon the business fundamentals but on the "stock value". Imagine how many people's 401k's (cheap substitute for actual pensions) and retirement investments are held in Amazon stock.

But…how PROFITABLE is Amazon? As of July 20, Amazon had made 5.2 billon dollars an apparent doubling of its profit from a year prior. Sound like a lot? Not to me.

What is Bezos' net worth?

What is Amazon's market cap?

Hm….

>>12130164

I'm not terribly fond of my former employer, but 3M is an interesting contrast to Amazon, as 3M is US based (though they make a lot of items in China) is listed on the stock exchange and actually seems to make money from selling real products (55,000 of them, apparently).

Here is a graphic of 3M's profits over the last decade or so.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/733577/net-income-of-3m/

Their revenue of course, is quite a bit higher.

https://www.statista.com/chart/14887/amazon-quarterly-profit/

>>12130223

Let's look at Amazon's history of profits over a similar time frame as 3M. See the difference?

Again, what is Amazon's market cap?

What is Jeff Bezos "net worth"?

Sure, its fun to sit at home and "one-click" a lot of worthless crap "made in China" and not vetted for quality, safety or authenticity. But its bad for your budget (consider how much you save when you shop in person and less frequently), privacy and your children's future.