Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
The most plausible motive for Amazon charging $9.99 was to put competition out of business, and then use monopoly power to jack up the price for customers while giving publishers a lower and lower percentage.
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Can you give me an example of a retailer who has achieved a preponderance of market share, there's really no such thing as a monopoly in retail, and then subsequently jacked up prices? Retail isn't the oil industry, or telephone/cable laying or steel or auto manufacturing. There are barriers to entry but they are relatively low, particularly if one is only interested in one specific area of the retail space, such as books. There are already a number of smaller, agile alternatives to Amazon, I see some of them on the "Freebies" forum everyday. Even if all of them were put out of business it doesn't take that much to set up a new one if Amazon jacks up their prices, and the publishers/authors have the whip hand because without them Amazon has nothing to sell. I think that's all academic anyway because I don't believe Amazon are going to jack their prices, any more than Walmart have done.They may well squeeze the publishers but that is a separate matter from price increases and putting the competition out of business, and should be nothing to do with allowing or disallowing a legal settlement.
So, to get back to the first question, an example in retail of someone who has done what you're afraid of?