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Originally Posted by HarryT
I'm not sure that I agree with you. That's exactly the reason that many European countries have fixed prices for books: the benefit for society of keeping small independent bookshops in business is reckoned to outweigh the benefit for the individual consumer of (say) supermarkets selling only the best-seller list at low prices.
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I'm not against their argument being that they want to raise prices to keep themselves in business, or that they want to raise prices to limit Amazon's growing control over the medium. I just find it funny that they claim to be increasing competition by taking away one of its standard benefits.
In terms of consumers, the question seems to be one of which is more beneficial, stronger publishers with more distributors, or lower prices. I think people's actual benefit will vary but most would rather side with lower prices.
For me, I'd be most happy with six months of fixed prices through the agency model, followed by market prices. To limit Amazon's growing power, Ebooks would be distributed DRM-free to prevent being locked into Amazon.