Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by elborak

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.

Please see post #154.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by knc1

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Which has to be from either out-of-date or mis-informed sources.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/

It's obvious Amazon is hugely dominant. It's silly to even debate it.

Google is your Friend

[elborak]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Please see post #154.

I did, but I don't see how it's at all relevant to the point I was making. Large diversified company != "massively dominant" in one field.

[elborak]

Originally Posted by Rizla

It's obvious Amazon is hugely dominant. It's silly to even debate it.

"hugely dominant" is hardly a well-defined technical term. It can clearly mean different things to different people. Hence to state that it's silly to debate it is... well, silly.

Is Amazon the #1 ebook & ereader vendor? Without question. Are they "hugely dominant" or "massively dominant" (you do love hyperbole)? Maybe, but certainly not beyond debate.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Rizla

It's obvious Amazon is hugely dominant. It's silly to even debate it.

Google is your Friend

Did you even use that look-up yourself?
The first two reports hit claim 65% and 67% of the US market.
The topic here is the German market.

Since you didn't read the reports that your look-up referenced, you most likely didn't read to the bottom of the one I provided.
That is where the report describes how the Amazon e-book market share is being over estimated.
With that information, you can adjust that 65..67% yourself.

"Majority US market share of e-book sales" == yes
"Hugely dominate (of sales, publication, anything you care to name)" == no

[notimp]

To open up the discussion a bit at this point (will read the posts in between my last quite emotional response shortly) - if you havent read it already, read A. Shepards blogposts on Kindle .kfx formating, typesetting and Amazon conversion practices.

You can find them here: http://www.newselfpublishing.com/blog/

While they are a very interesting read on their own, they also add context regarding the angle we are looking at in this thread.

If you are a lurking Amazon marketing honcho - probably the same one, that so effectively delayed the release of the current jailbreak - regardless of how this standoff plays out - get management to create a new fulltime position to go through everyone of those three blogposts and make sure to address every detail in there. (And keep this person in the same role from now on. So you get input before you create rendering engines that aren't up to the task.)

From hyphenation thats only expanding (and not shrinking) inter word spacing, to breaking at dashes, to forced paragraph spacing to the mess that is image conversion right now (which sounds just like a real structural problem with your workflow) - and if you don't -- don't expect people to follow the "Amazon knows best" line of argument, you currently try to establish around the .kfx problem.

Also - get some half decent serif fonts together while you are at it. Bookerly might be your best one so far, but it is only mediocre compared to Andada Regular (f.e.) and some other ones I've used on the new PW. Andada is especially interesting, as it shows that the "bold lines" approach ("bold fonts are more readable") isnt actually true (anymore, dpi might play a role) for reading on Kindles.

-- end digression - and if you currently are in a wtf mindset, after reading the last paragraph - try it, preferably before commenting on it.
-

And to bring this around to be on topic for our little discussion in here again - the three blogposts from A. Shepard as well as the picture that can be established on how Amazon handles rendering, format choices, defaults and layout and did so in the past - are ample proof for them being exactly the wrong guys to entrust with the development of new electronic book formats. Which curiously all turn out to be increasingly proprietary and then being forced onto customers without even an opt out.

The smarts entirely stopped with the mobi buyout - then they neglected any need for hyphenations for years, then messed up the implementation - then made it a feature exclusive (softhyphens are a great way to ruin your books code for posterity... ) for their new file format - which only they can produce (*waveat* publishers), and then mess up standards and best practices.

Also - in the blogposts you find another mention, that right now publishers and authors dont even have control over the release of final versions of their content. Not only are they waiting three months and more for an Amazon bot to show up and trigger conversion to the .kfx format, rollout of changed versions after that point is messed up, and not only is it messed up, the layout decisions Amazon decides to be "best for everyone" (extra spacing after paragraphs, because our authors en large cant format a book - so lets go with the lowest common denominator...) are actually quite horrible.

So is the idea to still have publishers and authors do the mastering in azw3 which then gets converted - but hey, we all know why Amazon wont be releasing any authoring tools this time around.

Also - if it isnt apparent by now, no - .kfx certainly is not a "delivery format" - its a file format, no one but Amazon is allowed to create anymore. Thought I repeat that one again..

[eschwartz]

And once again, that matters because... ???
If Amazon sells bad-quality books, they will stop selling.


But this is COMPLETELY


Your purpose in this thread was to argue the point that Amazon is too powerful, with market share that dominates the industry, yadda yadda yadda... halting the jailbreak, more control... KFX is just a part of Amazon's vertical integration attempts to own the physical act of publishing...

Discussions about the quality of KFX belong elsewhere.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

And once again, that matters because... ???
If Amazon sells bad-quality books, they will stop selling.


But this is COMPLETELY


Your purpose in this thread was to argue the point that Amazon is too powerful, with market share that dominates the industry, yadda yadda yadda... halting the jailbreak, more control... KFX is just a part of Amazon's vertical integration attempts to own the physical act of publishing...

Discussions about the quality of KFX belong elsewhere.

Good post. One minor correction. Based on notimp's posts to date I don't think he is here to argue anything, just to preach, as contrary points are mostly ignored in favour of continuous repetition of his views.

Oh, and you left out one of his major themes, the vague destruction of culture argument hinging on Amazon's failure to treat books as special snowflakes.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by darryl

Good post. One minor correction. Based on notimp's posts to date I don't think he is here to argue anything, just to preach, as contrary points are mostly ignored in favour of continuous repetition of his views.

Well, that would be my opinion on what he's saying -- but if I'm going to engage in meta-discussion about the purpose of the thread, I have to be more generous in my description.

Oh, and you left out one of his major themes, the vague destruction of culture argument hinging on Amazon's failure to treat books as special snowflakes.

Destruction of culture was ancillary to "owning the physical act of publishing".

[knc1]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

- - - -
Destruction of culture was ancillary to "owning the physical act of publishing".

And if this argument was presented consistently . . . .

We should be reading about how Gutenberg stole the concept of movable type from the Chinese, cast the type in metal rather than ceramic and then mechanized the press.

All in an attempt to "own" the printing process then being done by scribes.

If that had happened 500 years more recently, the scribes' union (and notimp) would have been yelling: "anti-trust".

# 84 84

[darryl]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well, that would be my opinion on what he's saying -- but if I'm going to engage in meta-discussion about the purpose of the thread, I have to be more generous in my description.

Noted.

Destruction of culture was ancillary to "owning the physical act of publishing".

It's hard to understand exactly what his positions are. My interpretation is that the (false) premise of Amazon owning the physical act of publishing is what gives Amazon the power to destroy culture, whilst the destruction itself is caused by Amazon's business models treating books as fungible commodities rather than sacred cultural icons. That old chestnut. Making publishing and distribution of ebooks easy and affordable for everyone "cheapens" the book. Destroys, as I think he described it, those structures built up over time. Minor point really. What I would like him to do, and I am not holding my breath, is to properly engage in a debate rather than simple preaching and repetition.

[eschwartz]

Of course. When Gutenberg kickstarted the mass-production of books, the literati were furious at the destruction of culture that was sure to follow, once the unwashed masses got ahold of the suddenly-cheap books and decided they were worthy of the Art of Reading as well...

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Of course. When Gutenberg kickstarted the mass-production of books, the literati were furious at the destruction of culture that was sure to follow, once the unwashed masses got ahold of the suddenly-cheap books and decided they were worthy of the Art of Reading as well...

I think this shows patent disregard for actual history. There lie hundreds of years between the invention of the combination of moving letters with mechanical contraptions and the actual mass production of really large print series (in fact, this only really took off in the 19th century).
Second, another innovation was the introduction of copyright (ip in general) came much later. This really separates the current situation and history.
Read for example Cerquiglini on the matter...
Before, all that could be owned was th actual material the print consisted of, after you could own the idea (which lead to the introduction of the large scale leagl constructions). This is something that makes your Gutenberg comparions really off topic. The problems notimp addresses are to no small degree legal questions which absolutely cannot be contained within the Gutenberg-galaxy analogies presented here (that goes for Daryll, too)...

[darryl]

@johnnyb. None of the points which you make, even if they were fully accurate, make any difference whatsoever to the arguments put. The point is that the printing press was treated by various elements of the establishment as a threat, for obvious reasons. No one is saying that the threat was recognised immediately. However, I seem to recall that the printing press is credited with playing no small role in the success of the Reformation in the 16th Century. By 1662 in England we had the Licensing of the Press Act, which itself apparently only codified earlier practices.

I'm not clear why you believe Copyright is relevant to this issue, but what I believe to be notimp's points are not legal ones. And Copyright does not and never has protected mere ideas.

And you do mean Cerquiglini the French linguist? A quick search did not turn up anything on topic. Perhaps you would be kind enough to provide a link or at least a citation where I can find his writings on the matter.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by johnnyb

Second, another innovation was the introduction of copyright (ip in general) came much later. This really separates the current situation and history.
Read for example Cerquiglini on the matter...
Before, all that could be owned was th actual material the print consisted of, after you could own the idea (which lead to the introduction of the large scale leagl constructions).

Copyright does not protect ideas; it only protects a specific concrete expression of an idea. J.K. Rowling does not own the idea of "a boy going to a school where he learns to be a wizard"; she owns the specific instance of that idea that she wrote down, and everyone else is still free to write their own stories about boys going to wizard schools. Ideas have no legal protection.