|
I think this is a very old argument with a new face to it. No doubt there were those who thought scribes who hand copied books had a monopoly on things and were overpriced on what they charged and I can imagine the 1st publishers to use Gutenberg's printing presses were accused of the same thing. And of course the charges of monopoly also go with the charges of books not being real because they aren't paper based unlike traditional books. Of course there was a time when real books were parchment based, and a time when they were clay tablet based as well. You can't stop progress and if you try you find yourself left in the dust eventually while everyone else moves forward. Is Amazon a monopoly? I don't know, but if they are then a part of the blame belongs to the traditional publishers who either didn't get on the band wagon or who having gotten on then jumped back off again. Mr. Bezos didn't invent ebooks. He just saw a market that wasn't being put to the best possible use and ran with it. Sometimes people have to be pulled kicking and screaming into the modern world since they are content to stay as they have always been and resist change. To then scream that the other guy has a monopoly is to shift the blame from the real guilty party to a convenient scapegoat (IMO). How many ereader makers have stopped making ereaders? How many book sellers have stopped selling ebooks? If Amazon does have a monopoly then isn't it (at least in part) their faults?
|