View Single Post
Old 05-27-2013, 08:07 PM   #95
SteveEisenberg
Grand Sorcerer
SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.SteveEisenberg ought to be getting tired of karma fortunes by now.
 
Posts: 7,435
Karma: 43514536
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: near Philadelphia USA
Device: Kindle Kids Edition, Fire HD 10 (11th generation)
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres View Post
Apple just might be egotistical enough not to have taken notice of the Microsoft lynching and if that is the case they may be in for some bitter times ahead.
Warning: Grumpy post ahead

I believe that Microsoft has been one of the world's top ten corporations, by market capitalization, every year since 1998. The anti-trust case was filed in 2001. So I'm not quite sure where the bitterness comes in. Because they weren't in the top 5 every year? I think that would be unrealistic.

There probably are/were egotistical Apple executives. But when a company gets as big and profitable as Apple, they are going to get antitrust attention regardless. And a tech company is going to have ups and downs regaredless of antitrust.

Apple was, at least in part, trying to protect itself from loss-leader pricing. Isn't that just what the US and EU governments do when they impose anti-dumping duties? So what Apple allegedly did is more a legal violation than an ethical one. Apple and those publishers tried something, and it worked for a couple years, and now they are going to have to try something else.

If companies conspire to raise the price of grain eaten by the world's poor, I will be as outraged as anyone. But I fail to see why the US government should be spending taxpayer money to protect eBook purchasers from there being a monopoly on a book price. Actually, at wholesale, there already is a legal monopoly -- AKA copyright. One great thing about books is that if you don't like the price set by the copyright holder, there are legal alternatives.

I realize that if I bought many newish eBooks, I might have a totally different attitude.

Last edited by SteveEisenberg; 05-27-2013 at 08:23 PM.
SteveEisenberg is offline   Reply With Quote