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The apologist wave of "analysis" over, now we get equal time for the optimists:
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Heh, looking at that link, I am reminded of the adage that when it comes to war gaming, amatuers discuss tactics while professionals diScuss logistics. Sure , Germany could have defeated Russia and Japan the USA in WW2
if you assume equal resources. In reality, though...
All those discounting schemes are certainly possible. The issue is , Are they AFFORDABLE for Amazon's cash-strapped competitors? If not , then they are of purely academic interest. What's more, anything they do, Amazon can do, only more so. Example: the Nook Color and the Nook ST. BN was first to maarket with the NC/ Nook ST , but despite great expense the NC hardly made a dent in Amazon's market share- and then Amazon came back bigger and better next year with a whole line of Kindles and the KF, thereby swamping BN's efforts. Frankly, I don't see that BN's innovations helped it at all.
Buried in the article are such lines as...
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They may not be able to afford to discount a wide range of e-books as deeply as Amazon can
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Retailers could have been doing many of these things all along
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Why didn't they do these things pre-agency? The obvious explanation is that they couldn't afford to. Now since then, Kobo has been bought by a big multi-national so maybe ththey can go toe to toe with Amazon. BN may not be able to . Doubt if Apple and Google want to.
Again, my analysis may seem pessimistic, but its based not on what thse businesses COULD do, but what-given their ecomomic constraints- what businesses are LIKELY to do.