Quote:
Originally Posted by desertgrandma
I take back the word. You cannot rise to power by being ignorant, but you can by being corrupt. Someone somewhere is benefiting by this law, which is not in the interest of the people.....wonder who that could be?
Unfortunately, this isn't a localized problem.  |
The argument in favour of fixed pricing for books (an argument which I don't personally support, but I accept that it has a certain validity) is that the result of a free market in book pricing is the closure of small independent bookshops and, indeed, the British experience would seem to bear out the truth of that. In the days of the Net Book Agreement (the British fixed-price book arrangement) every town had its small bookshops. Within a few years of its abolition, they'd practically all gone. These days supermarkets sell cheap bestsellers, and there's only one bookseller still left - Waterstones, who have a shop in almost every town. Independent booksellers (other than specialist shops) are practically an extinct species. It could well be argued that this is too high a price to pay for the privilege of being able to buy cheap bestsellers along with your groceries.