It woulld have been interesting to see what would have happened if the DOJ had just let the agency pricing situation play out. I think we would have ended up with more retailers and lower prices eventually, a la the iOS App store, but that's water under the bridge.
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Price fixing may or not work elsewhere but *here*, as implemented, it hasn't achieved any social good and the DOJ for calling a two year hiatus in its use by the conspirators may force them to actually take a look at what they've been doing to themselves, their authors, and their readers. And maybe they'll come up with a *legal* approach to selling their product at a time of technological disruption.
Or not. Maybe they'll just go back to Price Fixing the first chance they get.
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You should note that the settlement lasts only two years. At the end of two years, the realistic scenario would be fewer retailers (A LOT fewer indie booksellers) and Amazon with 80 per cent or more of the ebook market and the power to dictate terms to suppliers -authors and publishers. Also too, Amazon 's publishing arm will be in direct competition with publishers, including bidding for bestselling authors.
I expect that faced with such a scenario, the BPHs will RUN, not walk, back to full on agency pricing.. In the face of that kind of existential threat, they'd be idiots to be worrying about "smaller shelf-space, more quality ebook content, perpetual backlist, less reader herd behavior " and whatnot.
The only question will be whether they can individually face down Amazon, the way Sargent did.
In the meantime, expect the BPHs to invest big time in building direct sales channels to consumers (Bookish, Anobii, etc). Non settling publisher Macmillan is already moving in that direction with the Tor.com bookstore.