Here's another even toned response:
http://observer.com/2015/07/with-low...s-fear-amazon/
The numbers are old and it misstates the Hachette catfight but it still makes the point.
Quote:
Authors United would have a point if they could show that Amazon had ever shut down a publisher because of the content of what it was publishing, but there’s no sign of that. In fact, Brad Stone’s book, The Everything Store, is up for sale on the site now, and it’s probably the most critical and widely read critique of the company to date.
Yet, Amazon is happy to sell it to you.
In fact, Amazon “carries” (after one fashion or another) almost every title ever, not a boast than a traditional bookstore could have ever made. Those stores were constantly making choices about what not to stock. Was that censorship or shelf space? Amazon, with infinite shelf space, has gotten very creative about finding ways to carry as many titles as possible, vastly more than any seller could carry before the Internet.
|
Quote:
The authors’ silence in that era suggests that the diversity of ideas or the health of the world of letters may not really be the driving motivation behind the Authors United letter. It might instead be fear of a future in which a small clutch of authors will not be able to enjoy the primacy they had in the bookstore world.
|
More at the source.