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Monopoly? Again? Just because a company (whose investors waited years and years for profit) took measures to gain market share?
1. Numerous brick-and-mortar bookstores exist in competition to Amazon.com, with several significant advantages over an online-only company.
2. Services exist which will convert any book into an eBook for $1.
3. Anybody with a scanner and OCR software and the time to spare can convert any book into an eBook.
4. Libraries make books, including eBooks, available for free. Used bookstores offer used books for sale, sometimes at a steep markup but more often at a significant discount.
5. Numerous other online channels for purchasing books exist in competition to Amazon.com. Calling whichever happens to offer the lowest price to consumers for eBooks a "predator" set on "establishing a monopoly" is premature.
Amazon.com had a new, more efficient, and definitely better-conceived business plan. It had every right to expect to steal market share. (As far as I know, "market share" has not yet been claimed to be an actual stealable possession yet.) Authors, previously published by the traditional publishers that justified higher prices for eBooks than for paperbacks "in order to cover expenses," are finding they can make a bigger profit publishing their books through Amazon and selling them for $0.99.
I believe it is clear that the old publishing models are outdated. I believe Amazon.com saw this earlier than most. While I believe the demand for pBooks will continue for many many years yet, I believe 10 years from now they will be published under quite some different model than the publishers are defending right now--unless they succeed in establishing legislation that artificially constrains the market.
Finally, should Amazon.com ever decide they have achieved a monopoly, and "cash in" by raising the prices on their goods to gouge consumers, I believe any number of new competitors will step forward with cut-throat "predatory pricing" intending to "establish monopolies" of their own.
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