Quote:
Originally Posted by Phogg
Well, that was an entirely goofy "Bezos is teh Satan" type screed.
Because Amazon is headed in the exact same direction Feedbooks and Fictionwise were going before the big publishing houses maimed them during their little adventure that was squashed by the Federal Government. This isn't some personality driven conflict. This is an inevitable evolution of business models driven by an advance in technology. It doesn't matter what people are officers or owners of this corporation or that franchise chain.
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I don't believe Bezos is Satan, and I certainly didn't mean for that to be the impression my post left. I'm guilty of equating Bezos with his company, which may be somewhat unfair. I don't think personalities have a huge amount to do with this and while the BPH settlements lifted Agency for a while, it appears to be making quite the comeback.
I simply mean that Amazon and the BPHs are not friends. They have a business relationship. And what's best for Amazon is not necessarily what's best for the BPHs. I believe the current contracts (what we can see of them) reflects that.
Amazon has reams of data that supports a "sweet spot" of e-book pricing. And, naturally, Amazon wants to make the most money possible. (They don't want to make any
PROFIT, but they do want to make the most money possible.) So they want e-books in that sweet spot.
The BPHs don't fully agree with that. They want to maintain their windowed offerings... it's how they make most of their money. The last thing they want is for Amazon to shape public perception of how much an e-book is worth. Combine public perception on price and Amazon's dominant market position (not quite a monopsony, but still extremely strong) and sooner or later, Amazon holds all the cards in any negotiation. If that happens, the publishers will get squeezed. It's how Amazon works.
Agency avoids this problem. If Amazon can't set the price of the e-books, it's difficult to shape public perception as to how much an e-book should cost. (Of course, with their own publishing arms and their self-publishing division, Amazon is having an impact on public perception anyway, but a) it can be argued it's not as
much of an impact and b) if you're a BPH you gotta try
something, right?)
Agency also allows for competing retailers that for one reason or another can not or will not follow Amazon's business model of razor-thin profit margins to grow market share.