>You are talking like Kindle is the ONLY way for someone to read a book.
I am not. I'm suggesting that it might be the most common way. In my thinking I am concerned with the top two players within an industry, because more often than not, they are the industry ("coke or pepsi" kind of argument). Or more importantly, they tend to define those industries.
Also "just don't buy Amazon" isn't the solution. The solution actually would be Amazon developing something like a public conscience. Social responsibility if you wan't to use an old, unattractive term for this..
Right now, when they are saying that they do this because they are working in the customers interest, that actually might not be true, for once (If it is new to you.
Another such example would be putting blacklists into Android, uninstalling user installed apps without there being a security risk or need for immediate action and removing non profit competitors from the Amazon App Store, because all of a sudden - hey they want to play in the content game. There are other examples of this, like Amazon starting to produce popular products in house (Amazon Basics) and then rank them higher in search, than the initial product they used as a blueprint.).
If you are willing to say, that people that don't want this scenario to happen, should stop buying Amazon, you are basically acknowledging, that this scene doesn't have much of a purpose anymore (screensavers and product support...).
Also the "people could decide differently" argument is something Amazon is actively working to write out of the realm of public action. Amazon Prime. Bezos in a direct quote -- "If we win a golden globe, we sell more shoes". So you have to argue, that in fact - vertical integration is a mode of circumventing this kind of informed response and behaviour.
If you are concerned with those issues, you cant just say "eh, someone else will do it differently - and that will solve the problem" - because thats just another form of making it an externality. Something you don't have to think about.
Amazon can not become the world foremost creator of digital books, and at the same time only see them as a something they should "own" (means of production, "secret recipe to make them proprietary", better readability only within our ecosystem) -- but thats exactly what happened half a year ago.
If you decouple publishers interests from public interests, like Amazon did, who will fix this? Rakuten?
The bane of my work still is, that people have this notion in their mind, that somehow it will all turn out like "it did with mp3", when none of the current business models is aimed at letting an open file format (different from the DRM layer) even survive (if its not the thing thats sold or mainly distributed, ..).
The next "competitor" of Amazon will more likely just copy this model, because - hey from their perspective - there really is no need to have the means of book production to be publicly available, or distributed.
From societies perspective, there is. But don't expect to have other companies fighting on your behalf, anytime soon.
The "we work in the customers interest" phrase is actually a very cheap talking point, especially when you are actively changing the playing field (and expectations of what should be possible with a book).