Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Precisely. Many European countries have fixed pricing for books on the grounds that, while it may perhaps be better for the individual consumer to have unrestricted competition, it makes society as a whole a lot poorer. Every shopping street in Britain used to have its independent bookseller; today we just have Waterstones. Does being able to buy the latest trashy bestseller half price in a supermarket make up for the loss of the small book shop? I'm not so sure it does.
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10 small book shops won't have the same selection as one book shop 10 times the size.
Abolishing fixed book prices may have taken away small physical bookshops, but it also enabled Amazon and other super-large online bookshops. The number of different titles available is much higher now than then.