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Originally Posted by tomsem
This isn’t going anywhere. Congress, if and when it start functionings again, has more pressing priorities than updating antiquated anti-trust regulations. It’s not clear that anything Amazon is doing violates current laws. And they consistently rank near the top of the list in customer satisfaction surveys. Some Third-party sellers on amazon.com have legitimate concerns, but there are other places to sell products online (e.g. eBay).
The last 3 tech companies I have worked for all had mandatory training in what anti-competitive practices are and how to make sure you don’t commit any in the course of doing one’s job, and to let the legal team know if you have questions or observe anything dubious. I have not doubt Amazon is the same. They REALLY don’t want to invite scrutiny.
Having market dominance is not a monopoly.
It’s unfortunate that the agency pricing ruling went the way it did: it is not wrong, but how you did it was wrong, just do it the right way next time, pay up, Apple. Stupid, it changed nothing. So now we have price matching (not so different from price fixing), to the detriment (I would say) of consumers and would be competition. The big publishers got what they wanted, but it is hard to see how it has helped them. They are still in a death spiral and unwilling to go big on digital, which is, as we all know, the future. They could be selling 10x the number of ebooks at the right price point, people would be unable to resist buying even if they never have time to read them (at least I could not).
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Ah yes, the assertion that if only publishers knew how to price books, they could be selling X times what they are selling. Of course, the point is to maximize profit, which means to find the price point that maximizes the profit. If you set it too low, then you sell more, but don't make much money. Set it too high and you don't sell as many, thus not making as much money. Economics 101.
The fact that the indies price point for authors who write on the same basic writing schedule have drifted up to the publishers price point indicates that the publishers are probably pretty close to the right price point.
Having market dominance is not illegal. However, if you do have market dominance then different rules apply as far as your actions. Yea, I went to the same classes. If what I read is true, then Amazon certainly has been pushed the envelop.