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Here's what happened:
Amazon prevented consumers from buying books they wanted. This hurts consumers and authors. Amazon hurt John Scalzi and he and other authors did not take kindly to being hurt.
I don't necessarily agree with everything in Macmillan's proposal, but the idea of paying $15 for the e-books of new release hardcovers and $6 for the e-books of backlist paperbacks doesn't bother me. I won't pay $15 for all e-books, but there are some I will - same as with print authors. I can wait until the price drops to what I'm willing to pay for the rest.
Under the Macmillan plan, no one has to pay more than $10 for an e-book if they don't want to. You just can't buy the e-book on the same day as the hardcover release for $10.
If you want first crack at the latest Baen release by one of their bestselling authors in e-book form, you get the E-Arc for $15. If you don't want to pay that, you wait and either buy the single for $6 or get the bundle in webscriptions.
Macmillan's plan sounds suspiciously similar. They're just stretching it over more time and being more granular with intermediate price points.
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