[eschwartz]

to what DiapDealer said.

Originally Posted by MattW

Folks here on MobileRead sure are a one-sided bunch when it comes to Amazon.

Is Amazon the incarnation of evil? Of course not. Is all criticism of Amazon unjustified? Of course not.

Let's state a few facts, then. For most of its customers, Amazon is a great company. Customer service, prices, availability, user experience... everything's as good as it can possibly be. So we as customers tend to be pretty happy which translates into a certain loyalty. If we'd agree that Amazon is indeed an unscrupulous quasi-monopoly that destroys entire industries and treats its workers poorly, then, yeah, we'd have to admit that we are shopping at a "bad" company. That somehow would make us complicit in Amazon's wrongdoing.

We will stop shopping at Amazon at the same time we stop shopping at every other large multinational, who does the same thing. Meanwhile we acknowledge that Amazon is no saint, that they are quite clever at toeing the line to avoid outright illegality far better than their competitors (so they are intelligent, but that doesn't mean we think they must be good people as a result) and in this particular incident they are doing nothing wrong.

So our incentive for seeing Amazon's bad side is quite low. This is a well established psychological fact: members of the majority, the rich, the nobility etc rarely see their priviliges as privileges but as something earned (by being born in a certain country or into a certain family, by having "worked hard") and it takes a lot to even notice when things go wrong for others. Legitimate concerns are easily dismissed (often smugly); the richest one percent, for example, often tout the value of hard work and self-discipline when almost none of them have ever earned their money through work.

In the case of Amazon, the arguments run along similar lines. Amazon is good for me as a customer, ergo any company that suffers under Amazon's market dominance must be doing something wrong, otherwise they'd obviously do better (there can only be a very small number of big players in any market, otherwise they would no longer be considered big; and for smaller players matching the price of the bigger ones tends to be a real problem that can't be solved by goodwill). Amazon has air conditioning in most of its warehouses anyway (most? does that not even raise an eyebrow?). Back-breaking manual labour was the best part of my life (why didn't you stay with it, then? Maybe because it's not so much fun after 20 years or when you're older or when you have to raise a family after you come home? Or maybe it seems great now in retrospect, viewed through the tinted lens of nostalgia?). There's a reason why folks don't pay for vacation where they are working in a road crew: it's not a lot of fun for most.

By that logic, ALL jobs are illegal. I wouldn't go to work for my vacation no matter what my job is; no one wants to have to work. Even the lucky few who enjoy what they do would rather do it for their ends.

I don't think anyone has said manual labor was "the best part of my life" just that it was not really horrible in the slightest, and was quite fair besides. Because people will have to do what they don't want to do in order to make a living, and the monetary reward is worth the effort put into it.

A teenager will often mow lawns, and consider it well worth it and a good source of money. That doesn't mean they will stick with it when they are 40. Situations change. Mowing lawns is no longer worth it when you need more than pocket money.

No publisher or author is forced to sell through Amazon, people argue; in fact Amazon accounts for a large part of their profits. So they should either stop complaining or stop doing business with Amazon. Which is akin to saying "You either commit commercial suicide or you keep your mouth shut". Precisely BECAUSE Amazon accounts for a large part of their profit, they are complaining, because any change in their relationship to Amazon (like the new UK contract negotiations) impacts their bottom-line more than anything else.

I am allowed to raise workplace-related issues with my employer instead of just quitting. You're allowed to voice your dissatisfaction with your goverment without leaving the country and anyone can talk with their spouse when things go south instead of divorcing immediately.

You are also allowed to go on strike if you cannot come to an agreement and want to show your employer that you are serious. If your employer is doing *it* to everyone, chances are everyone will go on strike with you. Some people leave their country because they disagree with their government and do not feel they can change things. If a couple simply cannot come to an agreement, they will eventually divorce rather than spend the rest of their life in a malignant relationship.

Things are not working out for the Big 5 Publishers. Perhaps they should go on strike to show they are serious. In the meantime, when Patterson Rowling and any other author comes out and slams Amazon for their actions yet continues to happily sell on Amazon, it gives the impression that they aren't really serious about their beliefs. At this point, they know Amazon is serious about wanting their way, so it is time for Big Publishing to up the ante.

And like so many of you have noted, Amazon doesn't need any single traditional publisher, but they all need Amazon. Does that mean that they're not allowed to voice their discomfort with one market player getting too big? Of course, we shouldn't take everything they say at face-value either, they're arguing their self-interests, of couse, just like Amazon.

Sure they can. And we will search their words for the signs of self-interest. And there is no law on the books that says Amazon cannot be as big as it is. It got there through market force, by deserving the business every step of the way. Above all else, it is legal.

But if history teaches us anything, it's true that when any player in a market gets too big, problems tend to follow. Not just for the competition, but for the customers too. Equally true is that times and industries change and that sometimes traditional industries need to make way for new technology (so maybe Amazon is indeed destined to preside over the death of the traditional publisihing houses).

Allow us to be shortsighted if we so wish.

I don't know whether we really need BPH for literature to survive (I doubt it, though). But I wouldn't sing Amazon's praises quite so loudly; they are as ruthless as most big corporations (and while they may pay $12.50 in the US, they treated their workers in other territories like Germany quite badly and when they were called on it, moved their wharehouses to Poland). They have the power to force small publishers into contracts they can ill afford (but can't really afford not to sign) and they, like all big companies make liberal use of tax-loopholes and lobby for law-changes that would suit them (and, yes, some of Amazon's behaviour might very well be illegal -- when the courts decide that it was; -- like their treatment of foreign workers in Germany).

... just like every other large multinational. By all means, call Amazon out on it. But why is it my job to penalize Amazon (with my wallet) for being a large multinational in support of the other large multinationals who do the same thing?

For a really big player like Amazon, barely keeping within the letter of the law might be good enough for its customers, but don't act so surprised when the competition isn't as enthusiastic as you are. Ironically stating that Amazon [in the eyes of its opponenets] might very well have caused the stock market crash of 1929 dismisses the arguments of the other side out-of-hand. Pah, they're just insane lunatics, you're saying, next thing you know, they're saying Amazon caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

The competition has every right to be less than enthusiastic when their business interests conflict with that of another large multinational. But when they hysterically start accusing Amazon of all kinds of wild moral crimes, I reserve the right to dismiss their arguments out of hand.

As a joke.

Presumably the same joke James Patterson was making when he claimed that Amazon is the worst threat to literature, and wants the government to step in to protect the future of literature:

James Patterson: "Read four of the most important paragraphs I'll ever write."
(I will agree that in comparison to his usual writing, this is actually quite good.)

http://www.vulture.com/2014/05/james...book-expo.html

Originally Posted by Patterson's speech

[...] and I think it's important that major players involved in publishing, as well as the press, and our government, step up and take responsibility for the future of our literature and the part it plays in our culture.

Or for J. A. Konrath's highly amusing (as ever) fisking: http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2014/0...-bea-fail.html

And Stephen Colbert's sensationalism, which surely was for the sake of making people laugh: http://lunch.publishersmarketplace.c...chette-author/

I know that most folks here disagree with the views I have expressed; I just find it amusing sometimes how vigorously people defend Amazon (or Apple or Google, for that matter), almost with religious fervour. The very simple reason might very well have not only to do with the facts of the matter, but with the simple truth that if something benefits me, it must be good. Because if it's not, where would I be and what would that make me?

Speaking of religious fervor... See Above (Colbert and Patterson) for religious fervor (as opposed to reasoned argumentation) looks like.

And that's why this thread goes on for page after page, one person after another patting each other on the back, reassuring each other that Amazon is great and noble (and, by proxy, so are we) and everybody else just a sore loser in this wonderful new world of technology.

OMG IT"S A BIAS!!!