Quote:
Originally Posted by abookreader
When Agency Pricing took away the need for me to price compare, I was left with absolutely no incentive at all to leave the Amazon site.
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Absolutely true. Agency pricing takes away competition on price, so takes away the incentive to shop around. Why would you when everyone is the same price? That's anti-competitive. What other volume business takes away the retailer's ability to discount? And it's worth re-iterating that it's not merely striking at discounts, but eliminating bundling opportunities and other creative promotions that are something other than a straight discount.
The agency model is based on how a real estate agent works, where the item is being sold by a seller and the agent is acting as a go-between. There's nothing anti-competitive in that as there's one item to be sold, but when you're selling virtual goods through an intermediary it's entirely different. The agency 6 now see Amazon, Kobo, etc., merely as intermediaries for their digital goods, rather than as retailers. I think that's a stretch.
In any case, none of that would protect them if the DoJ concludes they illegally colluded (which is what is being alleged, and is completely ignored by Coker's self-serving viewpoint).