IMO Waterstones has one very valid point buried in his article, namely that Amazon is manipulating the tax system in order to gain a huge competitive advantage. They pay almost no UK taxes, especially on ebooks (Amazon charges a 3% VAT instead of the standard 20% VAT because they're officially based in Luxembourg). It also prevents the UK from receiving significant tax revenues, thus it's valid to portray Amazon as a bad corporate citizen.
Some of what Mr Waterstones is saying is hyperbolic rhetoric, but he does have cause for complaint.
That said....
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Originally Posted by rhadin
I will make, yet again, the same suggestion to publishers that I have made before. Simply stop selling to Amazon.
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1) It's way too late for that. E.g. Amazon has 25% of the market in the UK, so if they refused to supply Amazon it would be an utter nightmare for the publishers. They'd lose significant sales, Amazon would make hay over being mistreated by the "evil" publishers, and the public would blame the publishers. Amazon also sells lots of other stuff, so it would hurt the publishers far more than it would hurt Amazon.
2) Unless this is a permanent position (which would be suicidal), there isn't much they could gain over this. Publishers already control pricing and retailer's cut for ebooks -- and that's gone over
real well with MobileRead posters.
It's also illegal to discriminate on price based on anything other than volume (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson-Patman_Act). I.e. if Amazon and B&N order roughly the same number of books, they can't charge Amazon 10% more than they do B&N.
3) They can't prevent Amazon from selling paper books. If Amazon can't get them directly from the publishers, they can get them from the distributors. In fact, Amazon drop-ships from distributors all the time.
4) If they did blockade Amazon from getting ebooks, then consumers would switch to Apple and perhaps one other store, e.g. B&N in the US. I.e. it would produce
more consolidation in the market, not less.
The publishers can't do jack about Amazon, except compete for authors and market their books better than Amazon.
I'm not even sure it's their responsibility to take out Amazon. If you don't like Amazon and you think they're doing something wrong, start a boycott. Pretty much everything they sell, except for a handful of book titles, is available somewhere else. Convince other people to do the same.
If you can't convince people to voluntarily change their choice of retailer, and as long as Amazon's behavior is legal, then I have to ask -- who are you to dictate someone else's preferred retailer?
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Originally Posted by rhadin
It would be almost impossible for a new startup to compete against Amazon.
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That's what people were saying about Barnes & Noble in 1994.
B&N had all the advantages against Amazon -- size, influence, relationships, capital, infrastructure, brand awareness and market dominance. Now, Amazon is on the verge of putting B&N out of business.
If a startup would have a tough time against Amazon, it's not solely because of those advantages. It's also because Amazon executes
really well, and is unlikely to give anyone an opportunity. And again unless they're doing something illegal, and as long as those goods are available elsewhere (even with a handful of exclusives), I'm not sure why there's a problem.