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Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Books are different because of the risk of censorship of ideas. If Amazon used it's market power to discourage sales of books with ideas Jeff Bezos dislikes, that would be a big problem to me.
But, while respecting it, I don't quite share the Authors United outrage. That's because Amazon's discouragement of buying many Hachette products is a business decision, not an ideological one. Exhibit A is The Everything Store, a Hachette book that an Amazon spokesperson has denounced because of its content, and supposed disrespect to Mrs. Bezos. So how it is treated at Amazon.com? Well, at least tonight, the hardcover ships immediately, and the eBook price (US$9.99) is reasonable compared to others.
Take this you anti-specialness Amazon-lovers: Amazon itself treats books as special. If Amazon treated publishers the way it treats laptop manufacturers like Apple, the only way you could buy a Hachette title at Amazon would be through a third-party vendor.
Amazon would be treating Hachette way worse if its executives weren't thinking that books are special. |
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Oxford Dictionary Definition
CENSORSHIP
The practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts: details of the visit were subject to military censorship.
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Even if Amazon were to refuse to sell Hachette titles, which they have not done, risk of censorship is quite simply not an issue. The situation is no different in this way from the BWM's rejection of manuscripts when their oligopoly was effectively the only game in town. And Amazon is not the only game in town. Such rejections were not always on the basis of lack of quality. But where were the protests that not publishing these books carried the risk of the censorship of ideas? That the BWM had to publish because of this risk? Well, you should rejoice that these "censored" ideas can now fly free, liberated in no small part due to Amazon's fostering of self publishing.
As for Amazon treating books as special, I would certainly hope so. But your use of special here is not in the same sense as used by the publishers. I think books, or at least some of them, are special. On this reading forum I'm sure we have few if any who don't think books, or at least some books, are special. A good friend of mine names her motorbike and thinks it is special. Others regard their cars or computers or any number of other consumer products as special. This does not make them special snowflakes. Sharing a characteristic with other consumer goods logically prevents the bestowal of special snowflake status, unless, of course, the other goods sharing that characteristic are also accorded such status.