Amazon Is Special

"[T]there's a reason why most companies don't employ the "provide a great service at such a great price that we don't actually earn any profits" business strategy, namely that shareholders typically want to own shares in profitable companies."
- Matthew Yglesias, Amazon Is a Great Company Because It Has the Most Generous Shareholders in the World

OK, one more, from further on:
"Wall Street has essentially granted Bezos the right to operate an extremely forward-looking charitable venture on the theory that at some future point it will acquire monopoly pricing power and start screwing us all."

Go read it all.