Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[knc1]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Stallman has done a great deal of good,

but if you ask me, he's a bit of a crank in several areas.

His monklike fervor -- and belief that everyone should share that fervor -- has not escaped notice.


And I think he has an unhealthy obsession with Amazon,

in addition to buying into the BPH propaganda a little too much for someone with his reputation for militant free-thinking.

I added a tad bit of whitespace in the above quote.

In a society that ever increasingly depends on technology, he has certainly brought to light factors that need(ed) attention.
And I can agree that his (apparent) overall concerns and objectives will end up judged in the 'good' column.

A bit of a crank?
I think my own views on his methods and behavior would have to be written in much stronger terms than you used above.
I'll just assume your being tactful in a public forum.
RMS is certainly a case where the message and the messenger need to be considered separately.

His attitude towards Amazon is certainly a feature of the "messenger" not part of the message.

Anyone following that page link I gave, should try this:
Find the word Amazon, see if a generalization can be substituted.
I think anyone that tries that, can see that what he characterizes as "Amazon" is true in general.
His message would be stronger if he had done that himself.
Here is a case of a preacher who needs to hire a good copy editor.

With his focus on "Amazon" he seems to have missed this more general trend of forming vertical monopolies by all the participants in the electronic publishing industry.

As others have pointed out, this is not something unique to Amazon, although due to their industry position, they do make an obvious (shorthand) target for anyone's comments.

In my early post, the one that lent to the title of this thread, I pointed out that vertical monopolies are not "in themselves" considered "bad", that only when they can be shown to be anti-competitive do they fall into the "bad" column.

The world has survived the Henry Fords and J. P. Morgans, and I still think it will survive the Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos.
Certainly in a changed form, but survive just the same.

= = = =

Background note:
Henry Ford is an often used example.
He (tried) to own everything from the land the iron ore was mined from to the making of the window glass for his automobiles. He came pretty close to doing it (and his company still does).

J. P. Morgan gets mentioned because his business practices lead to much of our anti-trust laws.
The J. P. Morgan/Chase bank is still a major player in the world's finance.

Jeff Brazos will probably someday be seen as the person who tested how far the concept of a vertical monopoly could be pushed within the electronic publishing industry before being trimmed back by public outrage.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by knc1

With his focus on "Amazon" he seems to have missed this more general trend of forming vertical monopolies by all the participants in the electronic publishing industry.

As others have pointed out, this is not something unique to Amazon, although due to their industry position, they do make an obvious (shorthand) target for anyone's comments.

Amazon have committed the mortal sin of being successful. That makes them a target in the eyes of many.

[elborak]

Originally Posted by Mike_73

I support the decision not to release the jailbreak immediately, too. But I doubt that it get's released later.

I don't see why you doubt this. The finder of the exploit has stated that it's his intention to release it once Amazon has a fix available (and likely a bit of time for the fix to propagate). What is your reasoning for expecting him to not follow through?

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by knc1

With his focus on "Amazon" he seems to have missed this more general trend of forming vertical monopolies by all the participants in the electronic publishing industry.

This is the old, old, old argument: Why "pick on" Amazon?

The old, old, old and utterly obvious answer that is forever ignored is that Amazon is massively dominant in English-speaking electronic publishing. They are so dominant there isn't else to "pick on."

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Rizla

This is the old, old, old argument: Why "pick on" Amazon?

The old, old, old and utterly obvious answer that is forever ignored is that Amazon is massively dominant in English-speaking electronic publishing. They are so dominant there isn't else to "pick on."

Precisely what I said above: they've committed the sin of being successful.

[Mike_73]

Originally Posted by elborak

I don't see why you doubt this. The finder of the exploit has stated that it's his intention to release it once Amazon has a fix available (and likely a bit of time for the fix to propagate). What is your reasoning for expecting him to not follow through?

Well, it's just a feeling.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Rizla

This is the old, old, old argument: Why "pick on" Amazon?

The old, old, old and utterly obvious answer that is forever ignored is that Amazon is massively dominant in English-speaking electronic publishing. They are so dominant there isn't else to "pick on."

Too bad you didn't include the sentence which followed in your quote.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Rizla

This is the old, old, old argument: Why "pick on" Amazon?

The old, old, old and utterly obvious answer that is forever ignored is that Amazon is massively dominant in English-speaking electronic publishing. They are so dominant there isn't else to "pick on."

Originally Posted by knc1

Too bad you didn't include the sentence which followed in your quote.

For everyone's convenience, the next sentence after the passage Rizla quoted was:

As others have pointed out, this is not something unique to Amazon, although due to their industry position, they do make an obvious (shorthand) target for anyone's comments.

Though I suspect Rizla's reply may have been a little tongue in cheek, it not only begs the question, but invites the observation that truth is often to be found in jest. Otherwise it is a case of being hoist by his own petard!

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Precisely what I said above: they've committed the sin of being successful.

Succeeding is not a sin, whereas shafting employers, dodging taxes and enforcing a super-closed proprietorial ebook format are less than virtuous.

[darryl]

Over in the kfx thread, jhowell has been good enough to inform us that the last release of Kindle for Android introduces the kfx format. It now downloads kfx books where available. Interestingly enough, this is not listed in the "What's New" notes. I imagine similar changes to Kindle For PC are not far off.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=245

[elborak]

Originally Posted by Rizla

shafting employers

I assume you mean "employees" and are referring to the recent negative press regarding Amazon's treatment of employees. While I don't doubt that there is some validity to the reports, the folks I know who actually work for Amazon have told me it's a very unfair characterization. They like working for Amazon. A friend of mine left Amazon to work for Microsoft a few years ago. He's now back at Amazon.

Plus, you'd be hard pressed to find any sufficiently large and successful company that doesn't have some employee horror stories. I can easily think of reports about Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, WalMart, Uber, Facebook, ... (I'll stop now; my fingers are getting tired).

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by elborak

Plus, you'd be hard pressed to find any sufficiently large and successful company that doesn't have some employee horror stories. I can easily think of reports about Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, WalMart, Uber, Facebook, ... (I'll stop now; my fingers are getting tired).

That is really no excuse at all.
Plus it seems that your friend was working in corporate whereas most mistreatment of employees at Amazon happens in logistics...

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Rizla

- - - -
Amazon is massively dominant in English-speaking electronic publishing. They are so dominant there isn't else to "pick on."

Hmm....
Not the only such comment here, some have mentioned 80..90% market share.
Which has to be from either out-of-date or mis-informed sources.
(I have not yet seen any references given for such claims in this thread.)

One report that questions such market share numbers:
http://authorearnings.com/report/jan...rnings-report/

[elborak]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

That is really no excuse at all.
Plus it seems that your friend was working in corporate whereas most mistreatment of employees at Amazon happens in logistics...

My last post on this aside, as it's getting too OT...

My friend is a QA grunt, hardly a privileged position. Yes, I'm sure it's worse in logistics, as with pretty much any company large enough to actually have "logistics".

I'm not trying to defend Amazon, merely pointing out that some of the criticisms leveled against them here aren't really criticisms of Amazon as much as generic criticisms of any large business. Things that are virtually inevitable once the beast reaches a certain size. You/we don't have to like it, but throwing that criticism of Amazon into the discussion adds nothing; it merely obscures other, perhaps more germane points.

[HarryT]

Warehouse work by its very nature is hard physical work - it's the nature of the beast. There will always be people who aren't physically up to the job. It's not a job I could physically cope with.