Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
I guess this is where I could start comments about Amazon fan boys who think it's great when Amazon uses it's near monopoly to punish suppliers who object to Amazon dictating price to customers, but think it's evil, evil, evil when other companies offer those suppliers an option. It's not the first time that Amazon has used it's market share to retaliate against a supplier who wouldn't cave to Amazon's wishes.
Frankly, if the government would simply stay out of it and stop trying to dictate winners and losers, then the market would resolve all this in time.
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So Amazon is "evil" for discounting books to their customers? And Apple, Barnes & Noble and the Colluding Six are "good" for a scheme that artificially ramped up the price of eBooks? How were the publishers getting hurt? They were selling their books for the standard wholesale price and the authors were getting full commission.
And another question no one seems to be answering. Why does Apple, Barnes & Noble and the Colluding Six think that eBooks need to cost as much as printed books? There is almost no cost in the actual publishing or distributing of an eBook -- and an eBook doesn't have the same value as a hardback or paperback. When I'm done with my printed-on-paper book, I can sell it, or hand it off, or donate it to the library. I can't do that with my eBook. The library (or my friends) will have to buy another copy. So, almost inevitably, an eBook is going to sell to more readers because there are more restrictions on how it can be passed around. It's the nature of the beast -- so why don't publishers factor that into their prices? Pure greed?
As for the government "staying out of it" -- it's the government's mandate and duty to deal with anti-trust cases. This is a perfect example of collusion, how far are you willing to "allow the market to resolve their issues?" Because this is really "the market" artificially price-gouging, EXACTLY why the Justice Department should step in.