Why I Love and Fear Amazon Basics

Jeff Bezos this week wrote his final shareholder letter as he steps aside as CEO of Amazon. It is remarkable what he and the company have accomplished. I vaguely remember buying my first book on Amazon. Today, I buy…well, that brings me to the point of this week’s column.

I recently realized that my kids’ whiteboard markers had run dry. I grabbed my phone and searched for replacements on Amazon. The first result was for Amazon’s private-label ones—the Amazon Basics brand, generic versions of items that Amazon sells based on public data about the popularity of name-brand ones on the site. I ordered the markers and they arrived in a few days.