The Amazon Rorschach blot

I've written several times about Amazon and its profits, which tend to be the topic of a polarized debate. Either it's a brilliant company investing every penny of cash in building the future, or it's a Ponzi scheme doomed to collapse. The great thing about this chart is that you can use it to support either view. It's the Rorschach Blot of charts. One thing is easy to agree on, though: competing directly with a company like this is very hard. 

(If you look very closely, you can see that in 2010 the company accidentally made a profit. )