As Amazon’s executives took the stage one after another yesterday to introduce the world to the company’s “next big leaps forward,” a sense of deja vu crept up on me. It only grew stronger as the event progressed, with many new Amazon products seeming incredibly familiar. The company has been criticized in the past for borrowing designs of popular goods and selling them for a lot cheaper.
That’s not an uncommon practice of course — massive retailers all over America like Walmart and Costco have offered lower-cost store-brand lines forever. But none of them stage flashy keynotes to tout their products as “innovations.” While Amazon has indeed brought certain unique technologies to the world in the past, this year the company’s “innovations” seemed to be more of it doing what it does best: undercutting the rest.
