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Originally Posted by Lemurion
I'm taking the minority view: Amazon was very much in the wrong in how they handled this situation.
Macmillan has the right to say "this is how we want to sell e-books through your site," and give Amazon the options they did: which were to either continue on the existing model with delayed release or go to the new model. Amazon has every right to either accept one of those two options or to choose not to sell Macmillan e-books.
Instead, Amazon not only pulled Macmillan e-books but also pulled the dead tree editions. It's that tactic that really created the backlash in the author community; not only did it hit them in the pocketbook, but it brought a private dispute into the public eye.
As to Amazon's charges that Macmillan is a "monopoly," as has been stated elsewhere, that's the whole freaking point of copyright. The authors and their licensors (in this case the publishers) are supposed to have a time-limited monopoly over the books on their list. It's just another cheap shot from Amazon PR.
I don't care so much whether new release hardcovers are $15 or $10 in e-book; both prices are more than I would normally pay. What I want to see are books that are currently available in mass market paperback priced no higher than mass market paperbacks (I'd prefer lower than paperback but I'll settle for paperback). If Macmillan follows through with their stated plan of dropping prices over time I may start buying Macmillan e-books. If they don't, I won't.
What I don't want to do is continue to support a company that treats their customers and suppliers the way Amazon did in this situation.
I know it's not the most common attitude here, but it's mine.
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Personally, I think that disputes between companies that are going to affect consumers should be in the public view more often. If this was not brought to the public view, allot of people would be wondering why Amazon was not doing $9.99 best sellers any more in some cases.