Quote:
Originally Posted by asjogren
If this was a true competitive industry, then I would expect at least some of the "savings"to be used to gain market share.
However, after all the mergers, acquisitions, and collusion - I don't see a competitive industry. I see a cartel that can wield power - for a short period of time. And then be replaced.
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It's still a competitive industry. You have the Big 6, and a plethora of smaller independents.
And the Agency Model folks
aren't a cartel in the legal sense, vulnerable to anti-trust actions. They aren't colluding to set
prices - they are agreeing on a sales model for ebooks that varies from the model used for pbooks.
Quote:
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Middlemen are vulnerable in the Internet Age. For example, Amazon could hire a few key employees away from the Big 6 and start a new wave of change.
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Don't hold your breath. That would require Amazon to become a
publisher, which is a completely different line of business with a different model.
Amazon is a
retailer, selling what
other people make. They are not a
producer, and if they have any sense, will not try to become one. Even the Amazon Kindle can't really count as Amazon becoming a producer, as the Kindle is priming a pump. What Amazon wants to do is sell you ebooks, and lock you into them as the vendor. If you buy an actual Kindle, fine. If you download and install the free Kindle app for various platforms, still fine. You're using them to buy and read ebooks sold by Amazon. But they
don't publish the ebooks - they resell what other people publish.
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Dennis