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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I don't know of too many people who have ever claimed that file sharing will "somehow disappear" if/when DRM goes away. Rather... most proponents of DRM-free ebooks suggest that the volume of filesharing will remain consistent regardless of whether DRM is present or not. It's a cost of doing business that you simply cannot affect/change/reduce/alter without running the risk of pissing off some of your law-abiding customers.
However, on the current topic... I fully expect Tor's DRM-free store to fail. And then I expect it's failure to be trotted out as evidence that publishers responded to consumer cries for DRM-free books and then those same consumers wouldn't put their money where their mouth was.
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I think that Macmillan wants Tor.com to suceed. They see it as a model for establishing a sales channel direct to the consumer . If Tor.com suceeeds, then Macmillan can go the full Monty and sell ALL its lines direct to consumer, without worrying that Amazon will say "Sell to us on our terms or we'll pull your BUY buttons!" Macmillan has already starred in that movie and while Amazon backed down then, Macmillan would rather not try that one on again.
Tor.com can succeed if it offer something the other book stores can't. I can't see it beating Amazon on price-Amazon subsidizes its prices from other revenue streams( according to most business analysts). The only other selling point is exclusivity.
Tor.com can say , " If you want to buy John Scalzi or Charles Stross, you have to come to our store." Of course, customers may not care all that much for those authors. We'll see.