Quote:
Originally Posted by rhadin
Let the market work as it should, and if you are unwilling to do that, at least be consistent and require all manufacturers and products to be sold at a price that is equal to but not higher than that of any of its competitors. After all, a TV is a TV.
|
Funny you should mention TVs...
For a couple years now, the big japanese and Korean TV makers have tried to limit price competition and discounting on their products. Every year, so far, they get the same result: consumers see high prices on the japanese/korean name brand sets and go buy Vizio or a chinese brand. After all, a TV is a TV.
But they can only do that because Best Buy and Frys and all the local TV retailers carry a full range of brands and don't boycott Vizio or TCL or the Roku TVs. They don't threaten to stop carrying their sets if they don't join the price fixing conspiracy...
As the source material points out, pricing is an issue for readers because pricing is a proxy for accessibility and, in an age where even residents of a small farming town have access to all the same TV brands and models as the residents of the most exclusive gentry community, the only way to separate "proper books" from the "dreck for the proletariat" is to use high prices to gatekeep the readers.
It is an imperfect tool, but it is the only semi-effective tool they have left. Price the "properly vetted" titles at $30 and that will keep them exclusively in affluent hands until the establishment deems it appropriate to do a trade paperback at $15.
The perceived prestige issue he brings up isn't just about authors from the elite, it is also (and primarily) about affluent readers and self-identified literates. As he points out, it used to be you had to be a megacity resident to have acess to all the books, all the "best" news reporting, the "best" sports teams, ballet, symphonic orchestras, etc...
Over time, technology has spread the access and limited the value of the megacity. The disadvantages of the megacities remsin, but the compensating advantages are evaporating.
And now the accessibility barrier is being lifted on books.
Read carefully and you'll see that the issue at stake is control of what people can read, that the prestige thing he alludes to is undercut not by pricing per-se, but by the rise of "New media" publishers (selfpubbers as well as micropresses), most (if not all) are not based in the megacities at all and are not part of the cozy incestuous establishment run by and for the elites.
Readers can and should care about attempts to control and limit what they can read. In the pbook era the establishment had a chokehold on distribution and on what got distributed and when. When they had the ultimate power of "No". Now, not so much...
"You'll never work again in this town!" is a cliched villain line because in an industry used to collusion and blacklisting it was a real, valid threat that ended careers and shut down dissenting voices. The same threat today elicits a shrug or a laugh and a counter of "I never intended to...".
Not much fun being part of the literary establishment when all the power is withering away. When the worth of a book isn't determined by the establishment but by its worth to the readers.
Which, yes, is exactly how it works for TVs.
But then, the TV industry hasn't been found guilty of a price fixing conspiracy. At least not yet. Given half a chance, they no doubt would, but in that industry retailers won't play along. In books, many do. Which is why it is an issue for readers.