Quote:
Originally Posted by Connallmac
Of course this author seems to think that Diet Coke is actually produced in some sort of alternate universe where market forces don't apply, so take it all with a grain of salt.
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I think you missed the point. The author never claimed that market forces don't apply to Diet Coke. But rather, that those market forces (that definitely
do apply) aren't going to change the product itself. While I may not agree that the content and quality of books
themselves may suffer as a result of this battle, I find the analogy quite apt. The market forces in this instance do have the
potential to change the quality and the content of the product itself. Whether or not they
will is another story. The big point is that this isn't simply a two-sided battle between retailer and supplier (as I was once willing to see it myself).
But the main thing I took away from the article isn't that books are different than Diet Coke. It's that Hachette (and other publishers) could have protected themselves from Amazon had they chosen to re-distribute the disparate margins (that ebooks offered over their print counterparts) in the form of increased author royalties. Now it's probably too late to do so. And rather than reaping the benefits that a larger, happier (and very likely more prestigious) stable of authors would have provided them, they're going to have to hand over those margins to Amazon ... all because of short-sightedness (which they seem to have in abundance).