Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
The Price fix six *secretely* coordinated to *raise* retail prices and prevent retailers from competing. They are in court for the conspiracy, not for the agency pricing.
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This "conspiracy" thing is an American concept that is mostly alien to other jurisdictions, unless we are talking about terrorism or mafia related crimes etc.
The EU is conducting a probe whether Apple and the publishers entered into agreements with the objective or the effect of restricting competition. For being illegal it is not relevant if they did so openly or secretly. (It may be relevant for the fines that are being imposed, though.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
Kindles sell themselves.
And why would any more people buy that than bought the Sonys, or are buying the Kobos? People want Kindles.
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No, some people want a Kindle. Others are somewhat interested, don't know the difference etc. That's the moment when you would have to actually
sell the product and that's when the sale usually falls through. Sales staff of book shops tends to be rather poor at actively selling something and they are even worse when it comes to explaining the technical aspects of setting up the reader. Staff in electronic stores usually aren't people who exude a huge enthusiasm for the book angle of the reader.
Do you recall when the Internet was new and just turned into a mass market product with most people accessing via dial-up? The ISPs distributed CDs and DVDs with programs that installed the connection. That's what book shops require: give people e.g. an usb stick with a little program that leads them step by step through the set up. It's the simplicity that is the Kindle's great advantage and competing products do have to be comparably simple.