Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
I don't agree that they could have easily (even if they wanted to) thrown money at it and compete. If you enter the market you cannot simply undercut everybody else and be free and clear. Especially if you try to match or undercut Amazon's loss leaders. It is okay to have loss leaders as long as you make up for it elsewhere (and not with iphones either, but with books). Predatory pricing is still bad for antitrust.
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Predatory pricing is about selling below cost (buying market share/power) and *then* raising prices. "Buying" market share with low prices and keeping them low is perfectly legal. And since Amazon did and does make money at ebooks, Apple could've matched them and still make money.
The conspiracy was never about "can't" compete--it was about not wanting to compete for consumers.
Agency was not illegal.
Raising prices was stupid but not illegal.
Conspiring to *all* raise prices simultaneously?
Illegal.
And unnecessary.
Amazon's mythical 90% peak share was in early 2009 before Nook snd right when Sony rebooted their solid lrf business into a generic epub operation.
By mid 2010, when agency kicked in, market forces alone had brought Amazon down to 54%. After Agency it never went lower.
B&N was doing fine with Nook until they saw "fixed ebook prices!" and thought thry could underprice Amazon on ereaders. Bad call.
All that drama, unnecessary.