Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
rhadin and pwalker. What the BWM publishers attempted with their price-fixing cartel went well beyond setting their own prices. What they tried to do is eliminate competition by themselves taking control of the retail market. Amongst other reasons they wanted to stop Amazon discounting their books. To reverse your argument, surely Amazon as a wholesaler, having purchased the ownership of the books concerned, is the one entitled to set the price at which they sell their property. What the BWM publishers were trying to do was eliminate competition, having experienced it for the first time in I don't know how long and not finding it much to their liking.
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First, so what. If you don't like the price set by the BPHs, whether set individually or via conspiracy, don't buy the books they publish. It isn't as if there is a lack of books available. And if the only books you want to read are published by the BPHs, then either pay the price or boycott them. No matter what the BPHs do, they cannot control the retail market except for the books they publish.
And the arguments here on MR have been inconsistent. Some argue that books are interchangeable -- don't want to pay the price for Stephen King, well there are numerous indie alternatives. Others say each book and author is unique and there are no viable substitutes. If the former is correct, then BPH pricing -- conspiracy or not -- makes no difference because there are numerous cheap alternatives. If the latter is correct, then let the market work. Let the BPHs set the price and don't buy the book until the price comes down to where you want it to be.
As for Amazon buying the books, Amazon doesn't buy the books until it sells the book. If it never sells the book, it never pays for the book. That is true under the wholesale model for print books where Amazon sets the retail price and it is true under agency pricing for ebooks where Amazon gets a fee for each sale. In neither case does Amazon "buy" the book until it has already sold the book.