Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Agency wasn't a get rich quick scheme. My impression is that the publishers expected it would lower revenue, as it did.
The purpose was to keep Amazon from getting such a big market share that it would gain control over its book suppliers. By stopping the loss leader pricing for a while, they may have done that.
I read somewhere that Amazon has become so much bigger than big five publishing* as to make cornering the book market less attractive than previously. If so, getting their wrists slapped for non-criminal antitrust may have been worth it to the settling publishers.
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My impression is that it would lower
ebook revenue, but their goal was to raise ebook prices so people would be less inclined to switch from hardcover purchases to ebooks, since hardcovers pay for most if not all of the upfront costs of putting out a book. I believe Amazon's ebook business was profitable, even if they were using the NY Times best seller list as a loss leader to entice people to buy Kindles, and that the Department of Justice had already investigated them and didn't find anything actionable before the publishers and Apple teamed up.