Quote:
Originally Posted by murraypaul
The retailers like Amazon and Kobo have no say in this whatsoever, for agency ebooks. They are selling at the price the publishers have set. There is nothing else they can do.
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And they have no say on what the government intentions may or not have been.
If the long term result of this is more money to the publishers it's not their doing but rather the publishers'. And governments enduring stupidity; year after year tbey keep forgetting the Law of Unintended Consequences...
https://whatis.techtarget.com/defini...d-consequences
...and they forget that humans aren't lemmings who blindly do only what the IdiotPoliticians™ intend but rather act in service of their own best interests.
Having allowed publishers to control the pricing retailers can charge consumers instead of only the price retailers pay retailers, governments (and their supporters) can't now turn around and complain when publishers set prices to benefit *their* policies and retailers have no say.
Now, add in that agency was *intended* to prevent retailer discounting and ensure ebook consumers pay as much as possible to minimize ebook adoption and protect print book volume.
What are the odds those same publishers will drop prices to increase ebook sales?
Seriously, the government types should have known better. Agency is tbe gift that keeps on giving.
Whatever they thought (or claim) they were doing, what they did was give publishers more leeway on retail prices and profits, especially the latter.
Laws don't work in a vaccum: having VATed ebooks for years they created a pricing baseline that people got used to paying. And since the VAT tax is hidden inside the price consumers see (and publishers control) there is no incentive for publishers to drop those prices. The books sold as desired at tbe VAT-ed price, they'll keep on selling equally well without it. But more profitably.
If instead of hiding the VAT in the price it were added at checkout, the way sales taxes are, eliminating the government's take would automatically drop the consumer cost. But as is, the retailer has no power; Agency made sure of that.
Folks can rant and rave against Amazon and Kobo all they want.
The only response they'll get is a shrug.
Governments are run by lawyers, not techies or business types; they can hardly be expected to understand things like interlocking systems, driver functions, or Unintended Consequences. It's all too complicated for their pretty little (photo op) heads..
