Way back in the olden thymes, when companies were getting on-line to sell stuff, it looked like Amazon picked a strange market to exploit. Buying books on-line was not a great leap forward, but Bezos knew something the rest of us did not. He knew that a business that flattered the beautiful people would have an army of beautiful people promoting it to the rest of us. It was the central insight of Steve Jobs. He was the post-modern P. T. Barnum, selling the glorious future rather than a glimpse of the wolf-boy or the tattooed lady.
Amazon never made money selling books, but before anyone could pay too close attention to that, Bezos moved onto selling other stuff. When that failed to turn a profit, he got into selling music, then it was movies and TV shows. Amazon eventually turned a profit, but the total profit for the firm over its history amounts to what a company like ExxonMobil generates in a good month. Now, Amazon is promising to have drone robots deliver your goods before you even decide to order them. The future will be glorious.
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