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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
So if the other publishers would happen to "lose" ("not win" ... be found to have "done something uncool"—whatever the technical lingo happens to be that means the same thing as "lose") their court case and the punishment is anything similar to the settlement for the publishers who chose not to go to court (assuming the proposed settlement stands), what do you think will be the fate of the iBooks store?
Will they attempt to "hang in there, baby" with agency pricing model contracts with all of the publishers for a few years while the rest of the industry reverts—at least temporarily—to wholesale? Will they be willing to play the wholesale pricing game for a bit? Or will they cut their "losses" and get out of eBook retail? If it's truly agency or bust for Apple... I have to believe iBooks won't survive even a temporary agency pricing hiatus.
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Hard to say. The DOJ would still allow an agency pricing contract-just with no MFN clause-which was and is very important to Apple. But then the DOJ prohibits no MFN clauses for anyone.
Apple doesn't want to get into the business of setting individual prices on thousands of books. They're not set up to do that. Hell, they WON"T do that, period.
I think they are in it for the long haul, or they wouldn't be fighting the DOJ. They would just say "No agency? See ya." They don't really NEED to have an iBook store. But they clearly want to have one.
I think if they have to go wholesale, they'll do an Itunes type pricing model- a simple scheme, take it or leave it,with few promos. Maybe somewhere between 9.99-14.99, across the board, all ebooks. Whatever price they pick, it won't be a money-losing price, though. Count on that.