Quote:
Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes
^A monopoly does not necessitate price dropping.
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If amazon had a monopoly and thought dropping prices would increase sales by a bigger factor i'm sure they'd do that as opposed to pushing up prices and risking losing more and more customers and at the same time making the grounds more fertile for a competitor to re-enter the market who would now have the option of competing on price. As this is an entertainment market, customers still have a choice to just not buy any books, unlike a monopoly on some essential product (gas, electric, water...)
One other thing that might occur though rather than a price drop (or in addition to) could be the squeezing of author percentages.
Agency pricing may have been put in place to stop amazon getting a monopoly but combined with drm i believe it's going to have the reverse effect. They need to get rid of one or the other imo. In fact, they really need to get rid of both, since dropping drm will have little impact for customers if the book is still the same price from amazon and their eco system is better. Dropping price but not drm would like wise not impact amazon customers too much either since they've already bought and been locked into amazon's eco system and amazon would be able to match most price drops with their own sales.
I guess in short, publishers are screwed :P