Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
Bold mine: That is the problem there. Could Apple realistically have expected to match ALL prices and make money or at least break even? If they stay low with prices by price matching Amazon ad infinitum they can still end up losing money while Amazon makes money. Unless Apple turns into a part charity (  ) they would have given up. They smartly said that they weren't trying to compete on prices since prices are going to be the same. They knew they didn't know how to compete on prices, because profit margin wouldn't have been guaranteed. And because they knew nothing (still don't) about selling books. |
IBooks isn't about making money off ebooks: it is about making money selling iPads. Which is why it took them years to put it on Macs and have never tried putting it elsewhere. If they were *really* serious about selling ebooks they would be trying to sell them to all comers, everywhere, like Amazon and Kobo. As is, when they were forced off Agency, they still managed to compete well enough to become the second biggest ebookstore despite that disinterest.
So yes, they could have easily matched Amazon pricing with no undue pain because they *have*. They simply chose not to.