Quote:
Originally Posted by CommonReader
Yes, it is when you sell a product below your own costs of purchase and at the same time - using your power as the dominant player in the market - force the only producer of that product not to sell to anyone else at lower cost. No other seller has the possibility to improve its position by improving processes etc., its just a question who has more capital to go on longer selling products at a loss.
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CR:
"force the ONLY producer of that product..."
But that's not the case, is it? There are not only more producers of books, there are other places to SELL books. You seem to want it both ways--that the government should punish evil corporate entities, just as long as it's not any corporate entities that conspires to do harm to AMAZON. (And, lest we forget, in turn, the CONSUMER.) Harming Amazon seems to be "okay" in your book. It's okay for antitrust to exist, (for publishers to conspire to sell hardcovers and ebooks at a set pricing), as long as
Amazon gets damaged.
Amazon did
indeed complain to Justice, et al, about the fact that the publishers WERE conspiring to get higher prices (or does the good of the consumer not matter in this conversation?). Justice and its kin did their jobs--they investigated. They found that what Amazon said was true. So, at that point, what is it you think that they should have done? Told the publishers to do WHAT, exactly?
Do you envision some world in which the owner of the store, whether it's Amazon or Waldo's Pet Shop, is FORCED, by the government, to put stock on its shelves that it can't sell, because it's priced too high? Or, what, that Amazon should have been forced to live with higher pricing, while smaller B&M bookstores could discount to their heart's content?
I'll say it again: this is fundamentally simple.
The publishers can sell their own damn books on their own damn sites for ANY prices that they want. What they are NOT allowed to do, under US law (and the law of most civilized countries) is form a conspiracy under which they control the pricing of ALL books, stifling all competition.
That's what the laws are about--encouraging and freeing COMPETITION. You seem to be perpetually angry at Amazon simply because they competed in a wild-west environment, the Net, and succeeded, because
they were simply better competitors. They embraced a whole new world of ebooks, facilitated, practically CREATED it; they have freed hundreds of thousands of then-would-be authors to publish their books. They've made it possible for Sally Jones to publish her books and maybe buy groceries. Or even quit her day job.
And have you forgotten Smashwords? All those publishers could have run over to Smashwords, couldn't they? If Dread Amazon were so evil? Back in, say, 2008, 2009?
But they didn't. Yet at first, it was Smashwords that had the marketplace. They had the momentum. Smashwords may be a distributor, primarily, NOW, but originally, they were also a big store.
Really, this is just a lot of thrashing about, for no reason. As stated previously, the publishers can do ANY DAMN THING that they please. I fail to see, if they are so badly abused, why on earth they don't simply come together and set up the BPH.com Store. That would, I'm sure, satisfy you. They could stick it to the consumer, at agreed-upon prices, and damage Amazon, all at the same time. Then they'd find out what Amazon had REALLY been providing, all these years, and I suspect that they'd close BPH.comPublishingHouseStore.com pretty damn skippy.
Trust me when I say, running a consumer-oriented, customer-service based online business just isn't as fun as all those Hollywood movies want to make you think. It's a lot of headache, a remarkable amount of overhead, and more customer service than ANYONE here on MR would EVER believe. Amazon does it amazingly well--and that, kids, is why they ARE the big kids on the block. Not because they are some evil conspirator.
Hitch