Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
According to the published reports the bone of contention is Hachette wants Amazon to stop discounting ebooks.
So Amazon stopped discounting pbooks.  |
Not quite.
Take the title
Instinct, which is currently the
New York Times number one bestseller on their "ADVICE, HOW-TO & MISCELLANEOUS" list.
Hardcover List Price: $25.00
Hardcover Amazon Price: $15.00
Seems like a discount to me.
What Amazon is doing, at this moment, is slapping on a "Usually ships within 3 to 5 weeks" notice.
Hachette says that they are shipping promptly. I find it highly plausible Hachette is telling the truth.
Amazon is using its market power to dictate financial terms to a supplier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
Hardly illegal.
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I think you are correct.
I also think that when a discounting merchant gets that much power, they are liable to use it to force down prices, which forces down quality.
WalMart does it with clothing. And Amazon is attempting to gain the power that would allow it to do so it with books.
Now, if the decline in quality is more typos and uglier cover art, I don't care much personally. But if the quality decline includes lower advances against book proposals, resulting in fewer highly researched books, that's a problem.