Quote:
Originally Posted by EowynCarter
Weird.
One the the reason involved for fixed pricing in France is to protect the small bookstore against the can make big rebate ones.
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Protectionism only works in closed markets; the US ebook market is open and active.
In a competitive environment *mindshare* matters, company visibility.
Everybody knows who Amazon is, who B&N is.
When you have a horde of generic me-too vendors none can stand out. Amazon and B&N aren't just ebook resellers, they are content sellers of pbooks and other forms of media, and are established brand names. Why go to a generic vendor when you get the same product at the same price from a known quantity?
And then, there is the fact that both Amazon and B&N are moving into the publishing business as an *alternate* way to differentiate their catalogs from the me-too generics.
Finally, there is the disturbing side effect that the price-fix scheme has incentivized retailer-level exclusivity contracts. Amazon has inked several deals for excusive content. With 80% of the market they can easily make it up to select authors in (sightly) higher royalties.
Between in-house published content and select exclusivity deals, Amazon and B&N both can make a compelling case that they should be the buyer's first stop when looking for ebooks. More often than not, the first stop will be the last stop.
Nothing weird about it; it's just the half-baked nature of the Agency Model. The Price-Fix Five are a big part of the market but they are not all of it. Not by a long-shot. Alternatives exist. And as long as alternatives exist, protectionism of ebooks is a lot like censorship on the internet: all it does is send the traffic elsewhere.