Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
I think your ADS is starting to show a little, Steve.
|
ADS? What's that?
ADD I'll own to. It's reflected in almost every post no matter how many times I proofread
Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
Do you seriously expect a large successful company like Amazon to to save competitors from their own poor decisions, pay higher wages than market for no benefit, encourage Unionisation of their workforce and refuse incentives from states and municipalities trying to give their residents jobs and attract much needed money to their communities.
|
Nope. I expect it from Toyota, or Volkswagen, or COSTCO, or Southwest Airlines, or Vaughan-Bassett Furniture, or A & P before they went on the cost-cutting, lost-leader road that led to decades of decline and eventual disappearance.
And just as nobody is perfect, no company is pro-social in every respect. Life is a matter of degree.
Also, companies should, IMHO, neither discourage unionization, nor push it. Volkswagen has seen the latter fail.
Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
And the behaviour of the large publishing houses can only be described as predatory.
|
Then why have none of the authors, whose books I enjoy and admire, switched from these alleged predators to indie/Amazon publishing? I mostly read non-fiction, but even the series genre fiction writers whose new titles I always read (Archer Mayor, Faye Kellerman, Julia Keller) haven't switched. They can't all be idiots.
Random House was in the news for trying to break internal staff unions. I don't suppose that's what you mean by predatory, but it is wrong. Union busting amounts to a management fad; there's no proof it helps companies in the long run.
Trade publishing doesn't work on a model where all, or even most, authors get a set fair hourly wage and health benefits. But it can work on a model where the CEO doesn't get paid hundreds of times more than the average book manufacturing employee -- I think they are already not so bad on executive compensation compared to an Amazon. And it can work on a model where they don't ask for bids to move out of London or New York. Is even one publisher trying that? If so, I'll be glad to use my bully pulpit to tell them to stop
