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Originally Posted by tomsem
The lawsuit took years to resolve. By then it was clear that there would never again be competition on basis of price, as publisher contracts that were drawn in the interim, for the most part, preclude it, and are no longer subject to the price-fixing issues present when the lawsuit was initiated. So while Apple lost the lawsuit, Amazon lost the ability to set prices. The principle of competition lost out.
Even if you are self-publishing on both Apple and Amazon, terms of service for both insist on price matching, even though the respective services are not equivalent in features and so forth.
Competition is now on basis of service and ecosystem features. Amazon seems to be winning at that, and it seems irrefutable that they give their ecosystem more attention than anybody.
Ideally consumers could legally migrate ebook purchases to the ecosystem of their choice in a convenient way, maybe using blockchain technology. But there is no current business incentive that would drive this innovation.
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Amazon's predatory pricing is what started the whole thing. Publisher's and other book sellers alike were under assault from Amazon's near infinite access to cash and no need to make profits...buying up marketshare, putting the competition out or keeping them from entering, which was Apple’s case.
Apple wanted to enter the market but was not willing to invest hundreds of millions to enter a product selling goods for a loss...which is what Amazon was doing.