Quote:
Originally Posted by CommonReader
The "it's just business" argument is as feeble as it gets. Running a protection racket is also "just business". Pushing dope is "just business". Having kids produce garments for 50 Cents/day is "just business". Publishers forming a cartel was also "just business".
Yet some business is not acceptable or illegal.
Call me old fashioned but I do expect a major bookseller to carry the books of major publishing houses. If I had to choose between Amazon and the publishing houses I'll choose the publishers any day of the week. Amazon is just a delivery platform that hasn't contributed any great book to literature. Yet with their grip on the market they can do a lot of damage.
They are just the typical ugly face of many new companies: hiding out in some tax shelter, mainly creating crappy, poorly paid jobs. If at some point some regulator or tax authority manages to grab them and to shake them down until the pips squeak I won't shed a tear. (And no, I have no interests in the publishing industry)
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I don't think fjtorres was trying to debate whether Amazon is evil (who isn't, Google?). I think the argument was that Hachette is rather stupid. They didn't get into this trap because they're so nice and only care about art of literature and never about maximizing their profit and got sneaked up on by monsters in human disguise. They lost their leverage through they own shortsightedness, to a great extent, and now they're kind of left with no other options but crying foul.
Whether or not 'wild capitalism' will ever be tamed and whether 'just business' will come to only mean honest and friendly practices is another story.