Quote:
Originally Posted by rhadin
True, but we aren't discussing conspiracy to fix prices; we are discussing whether the publisher or the retailer should be able to set the price. As even the DOJ conceded, agency pricing is not illegal; what is illegal is entering into a conspiracy.
The fallacy here is that it assumes there is an entitlement to have immediate access to all things. Being able to own a car is also important. The fact that I can't afford a Rolls Royce doesn't mean RR needs to lower its price so I can buy one. I need to wait and save my money. Readers aren't entitled to immediate access and if they want immediate access, they spend the money on the book instead of a meal out or some other thing. We all have to make choices in daily purchasing.
As for being part of the conversation, the fallacy with the argument is that it assumes (a) everyone wants to be part of the conversation immediately and (b) that everyone is entitled to be part of the conversation immediately. Neither has never been the true and never will be true. Even the vaunted Athenian democracy only allowed certain citizens to participate. And it was centuries before women were allowed to participate in the conversation and when the suffrage movement was active here in the United States, many more women opposed suffrage than supported it.
The argument to let the market work for itself cuts both ways, but in the end, in the discussion about whether publishers or retailers should set prices, it is an argument as much in favor of agency pricing as against agency pricing. So I am not certain what your point is.
And I never suggested that the article said that all things should be cheap. I was saying that there is no particular reason to single books out to be cheap but not other more-in-demand commodities. If all books should have a ceiling price, so should every other commodity.
I don't think BPHs are hard to defend at all, except here on MR where Amazon is king and BPHs are the villains. And it is hard here on MR because so many commenters are blind to any of the arguments that favor pricing higher than they believe books should cost. Inability to defend BPHs has nothing to do with facts; it has to do with people's mindset and unwillingness to accept that there may be another side to argument.
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I don't believe there is a "fallacy" in the author's argument (at least not the arguments you point to), because he doesn't assume a right to immediate access. His argument, as I recall, was that immediate access was beneficial. Similarly, his argument was that it is beneficial to give people greater access because then they can be part of the conversation, not that everyone necessarily wants or needs to be part of that conversation. This reading of the article is more consistent with the author's overall point, that the issue is really a "Morlocks vs. Eloi" issue.
As far as defending Amazon or the BPHs, I'm somewhat indifferent. I favour cheaper books since I pay for them, so if a retailer wants to use their market power to negotiate lower prices, great. Neither side is a paragon of virtue or doing anything but trying to benefit their own profits (which I don't have a problem with) but Amazon's interests, in this, aligns with my own for the moment.
If nothing else, I think the article does highlight some of the tiresome hyperbole spewing, at least form one side.