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Originally Posted by barutanseijin
I think the "elitist New York lit establishment" vs. "populist" Amazon rubric misses the point. By a long shot. It's dangerous to let one firm sitting on a key node to have that much power. It's pretty easy to imagine Amazon abusing its position in the same way that Hollywood, AT&T, IBM, M$ or NBC did. We've been down this road before. Why are we doing it again?
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When it comes to ebooks, it's because the publishers, in their infinite wisdom, chose not to require a standardized ebook format, with a standard DRM if required. After it became obvious that Amazon had a natural monopoly because they had a good ereader, an even better retail store and integrated delivery system, the publishers guaranteed the monopoly by requiring DRM and a uniform price everywhere. If you've already got an Amazon capable device, there's no reason to go anywhere else if it's never cheaper elsewhere, and anything you'd buy elsewhere can't be read on your Amazon device anyway and it would be a pain to get it on your ereader to boot.
In reality, the agency pricing was never about diminishing Amazon's dominance in (e)book retailing, it was about controlling ebook prices so that they wouldn't cannibalize the hardcover sales. Anyone who looks at the DOJ anti-trust lawsuit and claims that the publishers had to do it because of Amazon's ebook dominance and that the DOJ should really be investigating Amazon has bought into the misdirection by Apple and the publishers.