[fjtorres]

It's not that I worry about specific scenarios--left to themselves, markets correct nicely.
But they are rarely left to themselves and in the ebook arena market forces are no longer operating alone. The price fix conspiracy made it impossible for the government to stay away and once government forces get involved, politics invariably follows.
Yes, the DOJ is watching Amazon like hawks...and the publishers.
(And Hachette and co are already whining to the european brusselcrats for more Anti-amazon actions.)
At the NYPL confab several anti-Amazon actions were floated like going to the FTC, going to Congress, waiting for the next administration to see if they can be sic'ed on Amazon, and extending the current PR campaign to a full boycott of Amazon. None of these things are about allowing market forces to correct imbalances but rather about winning through politics what they can't win through clean, open comprtition.

Which is why we now face dueling petitions from both sides.
And an outright mudslinging war.

Once bureaucrats and politicians get involved, logic and reason go by the board and it's all about influence peddling and in the end it is consumers who pay the bill.

It would be nice to just get back to reading--I have a couple must reads becoming available next week and, amusingly enough, the Authors' Letter led me to discover a new technothriler series that sounds like fun--but totally ignoring the mess only means getting blinsided when the bill comes due.

I'd rather be alert and prepared for what's coming.