The last time we heard of Marc Lore, mk was lamenting that Amazon was able to “kill” his company Quidsi by, uh, giving him half a billion dollars. This followed a scorched earth price war in which new parents enjoyed $100 million worth of diaper discounts.

All this was bad for us regular folks, somehow, though we never got the details. mk did point out that this was about more than just diapers, and now I see just how right he was.

(A quick price check on the top hit for “diapers” suggests that Amazon-owned diapers.com has not yet deployed the moneymaking Screw the Customer campaign. Those calculating scoundrels!)

Mr. Lore, only mostly dead, seems not to have learned his lesson about taking on a bully and has founded Jet. The membership-based retail site plans to launch with ten million items and compete directly with Amazon, with a promise to offer the lowest prices.

I agree with the professor who calls it “a retailer designed by a consultant that makes sense in theory and has trouble in execution,” but while it lasts it will be another option for price-conscious customers to score cheap diapers and other goods.

I wonder if Jet is what b_b had in mind when he said that Amazon needed “some serious regulation to tamp down their empire.”

Perhaps someone will tell me this is still bad news because of the sweatshops.