Americans seemingly can. Walmart and Target do healthy business, despite facing the big and fearsome Amazon. So does Shopify and Shopify’s merchant partners. So does my local book store (the French say it is impossible for bookstores to compete with Amazon without absurd anti-consumer protections).

Before Amazon was ascendant, I think it was Walmart that was the dominant player making sure a small company like Amazon could never grow to become competitive.

I don’t understand the European culture of making excuses for uncompetitive business when time after time the Americans, and increasingly the Chinese, show that it is actually possible to innovate and disrupt entrenched competitors.