Eddie Cue would violate antitrust laws again...

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

He is not advocating agency, he is advocating Apple.

Practically speaking, it is the same.

Actually, I'm doing neither. I'm pointing out that agency does not preclude the reseller from running a loyalty program. I really don't care one way or the other what sort of contract the publishers have with the resellers as long as I can buy the books that I want in a format that I want.

Agency was pushed by the publishers, not Apple. It makes sense from their point of view. It protects them from a reseller who views books as just another commodity and potentially could devalue books in the eyes of the public. If you read the articles, this is what the publishers feared Amazon was doing. You can debate if that fear was justified, but it was the issue that agency was suppose to combat.

Apple was simply trying to enter the ebook market. If you read the history of Apple's ebook store, you see that they actually wanted some sort of tiered pricing schedule, much like there music store has. They bought into the agency model because 1) they already had such a model in the app store and 2) it was a way to bring the big publishers on board.

This narrative that I'm some Apple fan boy is a rather silly attempt to dismiss my points without having to think about them. As I have pointed out before, I don't buy from the Apple ebooks store. If I was the Apple fan boy that you guys are trying to paint me as, I would be. My issue with this whole situation has never had a thing to do with Apple, but rather the DOJ and government twisting anti-trust law to hobble competition in the ebook market. If the DOJ and Judge Cote had not gotten involved, we would see a much more robust ebook market and possibly many more choices in how we buy ebooks.

[leebase]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

I was perfectly happy with the original wholesale model

Customers love being the recipient's of loss leader largess.

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

It shouldn't even have mattered to the publisher whether the consumer bought paper or ebook, because the wholesale price was the same.

Think about that. How much must it have mattered for the publishers to go to war with their best customer? Have you ever asked yourself WHY it would matter to publishers? Beyond saying "why should they care, they are getting their wholesale money either way" and concluding "publishers are just stupid, if not outright evil".

Ok...I'll do the thinking for you. Your job is to try to have an open mind to UNDERSTAND from their pov (not agree, but understand).

Amazon is the most powerful book seller and they set the ENTIRE NYT Bestseller's list on sale at $9.99, which was a below wholesale price.

Whither the REST of the publisher's customers? How are they to sell those hardback books at $25 when Amazon is selling the same book as an ebook for $9.99. Why, that deal is so good that customers paid $400 for the original Kindle ereader just based on the savings they could get for the books.

Is it in the publisher's best interest for Amazon to run the rest of their customers (to a publisher, the retailer is the customer) out of business? No.

But wait. There's more. Amazon was training the market that $9.99 was the proper price for a new release book. What happens after Amazon runs the rest of the publisher's customers out of business? Will Amazon just continue to sell every NYT bestseller at a loss when there is no competition left? NO.

Amazon will turn around and tell the publisher...the proper wholesale price for new bestseller books is now $7, not $12. What could the publisher's do then? The rest of their customers are out of business and they are beholden to Amazon.

That scenario is exactly what the publishers were concerned with. Now you are free to not care about the publishers and their profit motives. You might think publishers aren't even bringing value to books and etc. etc. But at least you can credit them for having a reason for their actions.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Actually, I'm doing neither. I'm pointing out that agency does not preclude the reseller from running a loyalty program.

Forget the "does." We're talking about "did". And once again: it was never about agency precluding loyalty programs, it was about agency basically eleminating a loyalty program's ability to to offer better discounts than the other guy on Big5 etitles.

You're of course, free to continue with the discussion you seem to be having with yourself--the "shoulds," the "coulds," the "doeses" (ignoring the thread's discounting/price increase focus). But it looks a little weird considering everyone else is talking about the "DIDS of the situation.

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by leebase

Customers love being the recipient's of loss leader largess.



Think about that. How much must it have mattered for the publishers to go to war with their best customer? Have you ever asked yourself WHY it would matter to publishers? Beyond saying "why should they care, they are getting their wholesale money either way" and concluding "publishers are just stupid, if not outright evil".

Ok...I'll do the thinking for you. Your job is to try to have an open mind to UNDERSTAND from their pov (not agree, but understand).

Amazon is the most powerful book seller and they set the ENTIRE NYT Bestseller's list on sale at $9.99, which was a below wholesale price.

Whither the REST of the publisher's customers? How are they to sell those hardback books at $25 when Amazon is selling the same book as an ebook for $9.99. Why, that deal is so good that customers paid $400 for the original Kindle ereader just based on the savings they could get for the books.

Is it in the publisher's best interest for Amazon to run the rest of their customers (to a publisher, the retailer is the customer) out of business? No.

But wait. There's more. Amazon was training the market that $9.99 was the proper price for a new release book. What happens after Amazon runs the rest of the publisher's customers out of business? Will Amazon just continue to sell every NYT bestseller at a loss when there is no competition left? NO.

Amazon will turn around and tell the publisher...the proper wholesale price for new bestseller books is now $7, not $12. What could the publisher's do then? The rest of their customers are out of business and they are beholden to Amazon.

That scenario is exactly what the publishers were concerned with. Now you are free to not care about the publishers and their profit motives. You might think publishers aren't even bringing value to books and etc. etc. But at least you can credit them for having a reason for their actions.

Yes, some people did buy a Kindle just for the cheap NYT bestsellers. However, Amazon was not selling all new ebooks at the $9.99 rate, and it was clearly a marketing drive for selling Kindles (and thanks to publishers insistence on DRM, locking them into the Amazon walled garden).

Amazon was not selling those NYT best sellers in a discounting vacuum. If you had gone to Target, Sam's Club, B&N, Borders, etc., you would have seen the $25 HC discounted to something like $15-17 dollars. At the same time, a non NYT bestseller might not be discounted at all, or discounted by a much lower amount, and the ebook may well have been priced the same as the HC.

I am sure that Amazon has been negotiating hard with the publishers to get discounts and chargebacks and promotional fees, just as all the other chain bookstores have. If the publishers give in to Amazon and give them better deals than any other retailer, and then complain that Amazon is charging too little and killing off the competition, I have no sympathy for the publishers. Amazon is only the latest retailer that is the scourge of the publishers, before that it was B&N and Borders, and B. Daltons and a few other national chains who were killing off the independent bookstores, and it was because the chain retailers were buying enough books the publishers gave them special discounts they were unwilling to give anyone else. It doesn't give the publishers the right to violate the law because they can't see the consequences of their own actions.

BTW, I have never owned a hardware Kindle, and I did not start buying ebooks from Amazon until after agency pricing went into effect. The only reason why I started buying from Amazon was because I was seeing discounted books at Amazon that were not discounted anywhere else. Either Amazon was getting special promotions from the publishers that nobody else got, or my preferred retailers were too incompetent to take advantage of the promotions (or they were keeping the difference in price). If it was the former, than the publishers are two-faced liars who are complicit in Amazon's dominance, and if it is the latter, Amazon's competition deserves to lose my business.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Forget the "does." We're talking about "did". And once again: it was never about agency precluding loyalty programs, it was about agency basically eleminating a loyalty program's ability to to offer better discounts than the other guy on Big5 etitles.

You're of course, free to continue with the discussion you seem to be having with yourself--the "shoulds," the "coulds," the "doeses" (ignoring the thread's discounting/price increase focus). But it looks a little weird considering everyone else is talking about the "DIDS of the situation.

That's known as moving the goal post. After I point out that there is no reason that loyaly programs couldn't co-exists with an agency price model, you shift to "but some reseller X didn't continue their loyalty program". Hey, you will have to ask reseller X why they didn't continue their loyalty program. Maybe it was losing money and they were looking for an excuse to discontinue it. I was pointing out that the initial narrative that agency pricing shut down loyalty programs is false.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That's known as moving the goal post. After I point out that there is no reason that loyaly programs couldn't co-exists with an agency price model, you shift to "but some reseller X didn't continue their loyalty program". Hey, you will have to ask reseller X why they didn't continue their loyalty program. Maybe it was losing money and they were looking for an excuse to discontinue it. I was pointing out that the initial narrative that agency pricing shut down loyalty programs is false.

Yes you attempted to move the goal post and Diapdealer moved it back. If you recognize the problem why did you try to do it?

The discussion was about the price of ebooks before and after the agency price model as implemented by the Publisher/Apple conspiracy. That conspiracy included "agent" contracts that did not allow any form of discounting. When that was clearly pointed out to you there was an attempt (by you) to change the discussion to "agency price models" in the abstract and not this specific implementation.

If it was possible do you really believe that "evil" Amazon wouldn't have just claimed their Prime membership as a loyalty program and credited their customers the delta between $9.99 and the publisher agency price on NYT best sellers?

[bgalbrecht]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

That's known as moving the goal post. After I point out that there is no reason that loyaly programs couldn't co-exists with an agency price model, you shift to "but some reseller X didn't continue their loyalty program". Hey, you will have to ask reseller X why they didn't continue their loyalty program. Maybe it was losing money and they were looking for an excuse to discontinue it. I was pointing out that the initial narrative that agency pricing shut down loyalty programs is false.

The point we keep making is that the retailers did not shut down their loyalty programs, they kept them but excluded the ebooks published by the publishers that had switched to agency pricing. And the suggestions you've made for altering the loyalty programs appear to violate the terms of agency pricing.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Now answer the question.

My initial reaction to this was:

Then I noticed that there are 2 more pages of messages, so I thought that I should read them before replying. Having done that, I must amend my initial reaction to:

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Yes you attempted to move the goal post and Diapdealer moved it back. If you recognize the problem why did you try to do it?

The discussion was about the price of ebooks before and after the agency price model as implemented by the Publisher/Apple conspiracy. That conspiracy included "agent" contracts that did not allow any form of discounting. When that was clearly pointed out to you there was an attempt (by you) to change the discussion to "agency price models" in the abstract and not this specific implementation.

If it was possible do you really believe that "evil" Amazon wouldn't have just claimed their Prime membership as a loyalty program and credited their customers the delta between $9.99 and the publisher agency price on NYT best sellers?

First off, there is absolutely nothing illegal or unethical about agency pricing. Even Judge Cote was forced to admit that.

Second, you are hurling yourself at a conclusion, i.e. that the Apple/publisher contract did not allow any form of discounting. I've never seen anyone in the know say that was the case.

Third, you seem to be stuck on the idea that agency precludes any form of loyalty programs. Once again discounting does not equal loyalty programs. Yes, I know that you keep throwing out the term "loyalty discount programs", but discounting is not the only form of loyalty programs available, no matter how much you don't want to admit it.

Last, I haven't moved any goal post. I have consistently said that agency pricing does not preclude having a loyalty program.

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

First off, there is absolutely nothing illegal or unethical about agency pricing. Even Judge Cote was forced to admit that.

I never said agency pricing in itself is illegal or unethical. Five publishers conspiring to implement it at the same time on all retails is though and that's what Judge Cote ruled.

Second, you are hurling yourself at a conclusion, i.e. that the Apple/publisher contract did not allow any form of discounting. I've never seen anyone in the know say that was the case.

Third, you seem to be stuck on the idea that agency precludes any form of loyalty programs. Once again discounting does not equal loyalty programs. Yes, I know that you keep throwing out the term "loyalty discount programs", but discounting is not the only form of loyalty programs available, no matter how much you don't want to admit it.

Then let me enlighten you by taking a trip back to 2010 when agency was being implemented. I HIGHLY recommend people watch the whole thing because it has great information on Kobo's pricing data analytics, customer survey and feedback results. It's also just an entertaining speech.

If you don't want to spend the time though skip ahead to the 43:00 minute mark and watch where Michael Tamblyn (President of Kobo) explains the conspirators implementation of "agency". He clearly states, "No discounts of any kind, no loyalty programs, retailers can't discount". I haven't seen the contracts but I can safely assume that he was in the know.

http://www.booknetcanada.ca/lessons-learned-from-short/

Last, I haven't moved any goal post. I have consistently said that agency pricing does not preclude having a loyalty program.

OK continue to make meaningless assertions on agency pricing in isolation of how it was specifically implemented by the publishing conspiracy.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by bgalbrecht

Amazon was not selling those NYT best sellers in a discounting vacuum. If you had gone to Target, Sam's Club, B&N, Borders, etc., you would have seen the $25 HC discounted to something like $15-17 dollars. At the same time, a non NYT bestseller might not be discounted at all, or discounted by a much lower amount, and the ebook may well have been priced the same as the HC.

Fall of 2009, Wal-Mart started a bestseller price war that Target joined in that drove bestseller hardcovers (wholesale model) under $9.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/bo...rice.html?_r=0

Amazon price matched all the way, although Walmart got the last word...by a cent.

It was not the first time.
Nor the last.