Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
So is Apple setting the price of a single song download at $1. Same with Saturn telling its dealers that "this is the price you will charge, period, and no haggling." Tell me, did you vehemently protest those arrangements?  |
Nope. Because I wasn't in the market for either of those commodities. You seem to think that this is a matter of principle for me
. It isn't - it's a matter of pragmatism, plain and simple. Also, the point you were replying to was a response to your statements about all this being market-driven plain old-fashioned supply-demand mechanics-nothing-to-see-here-move-along. The point was ONLY that the Agency 5 model is totally anti-capitalism and OPEC-style price-fixing plain and simple. Let's not move the goalposts 'kay?
By the way, the Saturn example is well-taken. The Apple example isn't. Apple (in your specific example) is acting as the retailer - they can set the price accordingly. Someone else (Amazon) is free to undercut their price and screw them over.
Regardless of all this, even if you ignore everything I said, the fact is that the market is also free to react to the Agency 5 bs any way it wants to. The star rating fiasco is one such way. I guess we'll see quite soon who pressures whom into doing what. In any case, it won't be too long before they're embroiled in anti-trust litigation - I'll be stocking up on popcorn for
that show.