Quote:
Originally Posted by John F
As far as a can tell, so far, Amazon has been good for readers.
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I agree with this, up until recently.
The biggest hurt to me, as a reader, in my lifetime, has come from the decline of newspapers. And Amazon has helped with that by providing a new revenue stream for newspapers. And they did this while also providing means for some readers who can't afford newspapers to get much of that content through Kindle 3G (up to the 3rd Kindle generation), and by creating a platform Calibre can build on.
Amazon also helped readers who like self-published literature to discover a lot more of it.
Amazon has also helped those readers who can afford to buy recently released trade books to get them at a somewhat lower price.
On the other hand, lack of cooperation with Overdrive library borrowing, outside the US, is a big hurt to less affluent readers. So is the refusal to allow library borrowing of titles to which Amazon has bought US rights, such as most James Bond books.
Power corrupts. Paul Krugman, the OP author, shows us how Amazon is being corrupted by power.