Quote:
Originally Posted by DawnFalcon
And if not for Macmillan essentially blackmailing Amazon, there would of been no dispute in the first place. When you chose an action, you chose the consequences - Macmillian knew what they were doing was changing the way the market works, and they'd face opposition.
vaughnmr - Again, realism please. They're never going to surrender this control. Indeed, I'd expect them to try and move print books to the same model - and if sales fall, they'll blame everything but their own actions.
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Macmillan is not the one that wants to change the market, Amazon is. That is the reason the pricing fight is this intense in the ebook market as opposed to the paper book market.
In a traditional retail market (such as paper books) there is a level of risk-sharing between manufacturer and retailer. The former has to make an assessment of cost, market etc and has the burden of manufacturing costs. The retailer has storage costs to consider, the risk of inventory being damaged, it has to invest in the inventory, store etc..
In the current (pre-mess) ebookmarket Amazon was moving into a no-risk model. They just have to have the file somewhere on the server and let it show up in the shop. They (probably) do not pay in advance, since no inventory is needed, no expensive stock, hardly any delivery cost etc. And since the store and storage is more or less a sunk cost due to the store already in place selling ebooks costs them nothing.
So Amazon does not carry the burden of the risk (which they still do in paper books) but still want to set the price, increasing the risks for the publishers in the long run.
In this view, and looking coolly, Amazon having a no-risk business should not be in the position to determine the pricing of the product they did in no way invest in.