Quote:
Originally Posted by plib
Some people seem to see Apple with a halo around it, as though it were an entity serving some higher purpose of marrying artistic form to function and therefore exempt from criticism.
In fact it's one of the most ruthless, gouging, greedy organizations on the planet, built in the image of its founder (or the founder who didn't actually make the first Apple anyway).
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So true. Love their product, hate the way the company operates.
Yet there are plenty of people who paint Amazon in the opposite way. resplendent with horns trident and cloven hoofs, Amazon is the great and evil organisation out to eat your children.
Apple and the BPH's are jealous of the success of Amazon as a business and terrified of the changes Amazon is fronting. Apple in particular are even more so, determined that they are the company to dominate the ebook market. Hence Job's determination at the time to wrest market share away by colluding with the BPH's on fixing prices to stop Amazon selling ebooks at prices customers snapped up.
If Apple could not destroy a company by endless patent suits, then this was the best way forward. The BHP's love the agency pricing scheme. It allows them to maintain the same business structure they have had for two hundred years. No change is good, at least in their eyes and especially if Amazon, that evil game changer, is throttled.
I look forward to this trial unfolding. The DoJ's case, contrary to some true agency price disciples, is strong. Else, why would three big publishing houses settle to avoid the fire and pain ahead?