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Isn't the ultimate point that Amazon "promised" book buyers large discounts all the time as it campaigned to get your business and deny it to the indie bookstores and B&N and is now breaking faith with that "promise" as it gives in to pressure from shareholders to provide higher quarterly profits and returns?
The problem with only buying from a company like Amazon is that the pricing model it follows is not sustainable forever. At some point the company has to meet shareholder demands. Amazon has gotten a free ride -- a ride that no other major company I am aware of has gotten -- from investors/shareholders that has allowed it to focus on gathering market share at the expense of quarterly profits and returns. Now the investors/shareholders are agitating for that quarterly return, which is forcing Amazon to alter its pricing model.
My question is this: If Amazon raises its price so that it is just barely less than the price your indie bookstore or B&N charges, will you continue to support Amazon at the expense of possibly losing the indie/B&N? At what point, if any point, are you willing to support competition?
What happens, do you think, to pricing if B&N follows Borders? We all know that WalMart and Target aren't competitors to Amazon or other bookstores once you get past bestsellers. If all you read are bestsellers, then competition may well remain once B&N goes. If your reading is broader, like mine is, then there will be a problem once B&N dies and Amazon considers itself free to raise prices as high as possible.
I think the NYT story is just a precursor to the stories we will be reading in the not-so-distant future.
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