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Originally Posted by crossi
Well if Kindle owners are 80% of the market all they need to do in get some big ads out letting people know that they can buy non-DRM mobi books for their kindles at Barnes & Noble or Smashwords or their own sites. Then just spam some emails with links to those sites. Just because they don't sell through Amazon doesn't mean they can't sell books to kindle owners. At that point Amazon might reconsider the percentage they offer publishers.
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Sounds nice , but realistically, it ain't gonna happen. Amazon controls the only highway to a majority (soon to be an increasing majority ) of ebook customers. You're saying that the publishers should get their product to customers by going through back roads and over goat tracks.
Let's use another analogy. If Walmart pulls a product from shelves because of a dispute with suppliers, its not helpful for the supplier to post flyers saying that the product is now available at the corner store across town. The Walmart customer is just going to shrug their shoulders and move on to buy a similar product on the same shelf.
We've actually seen this movie. Amazon had a dispute with an independent publisher (IPG) earlier this year. IPG refused to change their terms of their sales contract to their detriment, and Amazon pulled their BUY buttons. IPG protested loudly, and even carried out sort of a PR campaign against Amazon . Four months later, it was back at the table. It most likely agreed to the new terms. It just couldn't hold out against losing most of its sales.
That's why the independent publisher's association wrote in opposition to the settlement. They know what happened to IPG will happen to them eventually.