Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
Does any part of that process even remotely make sense when dealing with a digital good?
With ebooks, the retailer really is working like an agent. They are not purchasing blocks of ebooks and reselling them, and getting stuck with or returning the unsold portion; that would be patently absurd and just replicate the massive inefficiency of the paper inventory process. Instead, Amazon collects the payment and sends its contractually obligated cut to the publisher, who can then send the author's royalties without concerns about returns.
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Amazon is still a retailer. As far as their part...they are still providing:
Advertising
Payment processing
Server bandwidth to run their site, and bandwidth to provide the downloads
Customer service for orders
Tech support assistance (for Kindles or Kindle apps)
etc. Rather than physical storage of books.
They're just providing different services than a physical book seller would be providing.
I don't have any compunctions if publishers decided they would only sell their ebooks on a site they own at full MSRP. I do take issue with their ability to tell an independent retailer what they must sell it for.