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Originally Posted by HansTWN
I think all this talk about a "monopoly" for each book makes little sense. Except for a few bestsellers or non-fiction books that may be needed by some people for their studies there really is no "need" to buy a particular book.
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This is right. The manufacturer of the particular shoe I'm wearing at the moment has a "monopoly" on that particular model. If I want to buy a shoe made by Giesswein, I have to deal with that manufacturer.
Monopoly means having control over a market, not one product in the market.
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The problem for consumers is that the agency agreement has eliminated competition on price.
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Actually, I would say that the problem for consumers is that the agency agreement has eliminated competition on price *and raised the price over what it used to be.*
ITunes also uses an agency model where the prices are set by publishers, but you tend not to hear the same kind of complaints about lack of competition on price with respect to song tracks because people generally accept that these prices are reasonable. Similarly, if the publishers introduced agency pricing a priced new bestsellers at $9, no one would complain about lack of price competition; people would complain about how Amazon has ripped them off for years with its $10 pricing.
So I don't think that most people who complain about agency pricing are actually complaining about the agency part of the price. They are complaining about the price part of the price.