A Monopoly is Not Necessarily Bad

[taustin]

Originally Posted by LuvReadin

Again, you're comparing oranges with apples. For those thousand publishers to be in direct competition with Amazon, they would have to stock the same products,

No, actually, they really don't. They have to compete for the same dollars. Those dollars are, in the case of books, discretionary. In other words, nobody buys fiction because they need to (keep your childish whines about how you need your trashy romance novels to yourself, please), they buy books for recreation. (Yes, there are some books that are business needs, and they are a veyr small part of the market, especially Amazon's market.) If an independent bookseller web site gets the consumer's money instead of Amazon getting it, they are in direct competition.

And that's a wide open market these days.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HarryT

ePub is also a "binary format", Jon. Try to open an ePub file in "Notepad" and you won't get very far .

It's in a ZIP container. In otherwords, a lossless container. You take away th container and you get exactly what is in it. No other format can offer that.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

It's in a ZIP container. In otherwords, a lossless container. You take away th container and you get exactly what is in it. No other format can offer that.

I agree with you. I was simply pointing out that it is a binary file format; your previous post implied that it was not.

[carpetmojo]

Not at the start, perhaps.

But the whole point of achieving a monopoly status, in anything, is that you are then the market, in effect, and can therefore dictate that market accordingly, as you, not any outside party, wish.
(Here the nasty ogre of political views or agendas that can also be inculcated, don't forget. Like, for example, a strong right or left leaning media and its influence.....)
Of course a minnow may always be "allowed" freedom to start up, and make profit/achieve some success - but wholly at the choice of the main monopoly presence.
But, start making too much profit, or become inconvenient in any way, and the monopoly will alter the market to either drive the minnow out of business, buy it out, or use any number of other tactics.
And, naturally, as said already, inevitably a "creative stifling" will occur - or more left-field activities ascribed to a "ghetto" to wither on the vine, or make enough of a success to in turn become mainstream.
Practically the only situation I can think of a monopoly being good for consumers or society, is the one of nationalisation of an industry - and that can also go completely belly-up !

[plib]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Public utilities. After deregulation, I started getting bombarded by offers to deliver the same gas through the same pipes at cheaper rates, the same phone calls over the same lines cheaper (and remember long distance "slamming"?). Sure, you might get cheaper service for a few months, but the constant monitoring/switching to make sure you aren't getting screwed just isn't worth the pennies you could save if you stay on top of it all.

Granted, those were legal monopolies that were overseen by government, but yeah... I dream of returning to the days of one gas company and one long-distance phone service. That was heaven.

And sports.

20 years ago it cost $2 a minute to call the UK from North America, and there weren't any deals available. Today I can get plans to call for 2 cents a minute or less. There are plenty of alternatives available if a supplier decides to up its rates and they know it, no one has tried to jack up my rates for over three years.

You really think this has nothing to do with losing the telco monopoly? I save a lot more than pennies. "One long-distance phone service" is Dante's Ninth Circle.

[plib]

Originally Posted by taustin

Michael Jackson is still touring?

There were probably enough bits hacked off in surgery to make a golem!

[plib]

Originally Posted by LuvReadin

It's one of the big reasons (among others such as crop failure and speculation) why food and fuel, for example, have risen dramatically in the past decade, far outstripping the rate of inflation - there simply are too few players left for their to be any meaningful competition.

I'd say it has a lot more to do with the increasing wealth of the "Third World" and their desire, and ability, to purchase the trappings and lifestyle of the "First World". Better get used to it. When 2 billion Chinese and a billion Indians gas up the car for a weekend drive to a steakhouse - neither the price of fuel nor food is going to go down.

[plib]

Originally Posted by MrsJoseph

This is true...but isn't Baen selling their own wares? It's no different than if Tor was selling it's own books.

Nothing to stop the BPH doing exactly the same. That might put a dent in Amazon's inventory.

[plib]

Originally Posted by Phogg

I tell you what though.
These things function best if all the power is invested in me.
I have others' interests fully to heart.

I am sure you all have the integrity to acknowledge this truth.

You didn't happen to work for the BPH about two years ago, did you? Or their press release writers currently?

[plib]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Not quite. ePub is just a renamed ZIP archive with, mostly, HTML & CSS files in it (plus a JPeG for the cover, usually, maybe an XML file or two, and a few miscellaneous files depending on where you got it from, like an iTunesMetadata.plist). Rename it to .zip instead of .epub and you can easily open it with a double-click to see the goodies inside.

If you use a better file manager than Windows, like Total Commander, you can open, and edit, with a simple Ctrl-PageDn key combination without even having to rename.

[DrNefario]

No one else is able to sell DRMed kindle books, and it takes some fiddling to sell non-DRMed kindle books on an even platform. (To get them sent directly to your device, you need to whitelist the seller's email address in your kindle account settings, and the seller needs to email them to your special kindle email.)

I'm pretty unhappy with their price-matching terms, too. The IGDA (or was it some other industry body?) came out strongly against similar terms in their android app store.

I really like my kindle, and the kindle shopping experience, and yes, amazon probably deserve some reward for creating this market, but I'd like to see other storefronts able to compete on price and provide the same level of service.

[CommonReader]

Perhaps I missed it but what exactly was the advantage supposed to be that we are getting in exchange for tolerating a monopoly?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by plib

20 years ago it cost $2 a minute to call the UK from North America, and there weren't any deals available. Today I can get plans to call for 2 cents a minute or less. There are plenty of alternatives available if a supplier decides to up its rates and they know it, no one has tried to jack up my rates for over three years.

You really think this has nothing to do with losing the telco monopoly? I save a lot more than pennies. "One long-distance phone service" is Dante's Ninth Circle.

Sure it probably has something to do with it. I just know that I've never made an international phone call in my life... so my experience with telco's deregulation has been nothing but: "no thank you", "no I'm not interested", "I'm staying with my current provider", "thanks, but no thanks." Not to mention fighting to get my original provider back when another provider illegally switched my service. My time is money too. And "One long-distance phone service" didn't waste my time... or ever piss me off.

[RDaneel54]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

No one else is able to sell DRMed kindle books, and it takes some fiddling to sell non-DRMed kindle books on an even platform. (To get them sent directly to your device, you need to whitelist the seller's email address in your kindle account settings, and the seller needs to email them to your special kindle email.)

I'm pretty unhappy with their price-matching terms, too. The IGDA (or was it some other industry body?) came out strongly against similar terms in their android app store.

I really like my kindle, and the kindle shopping experience, and yes, amazon probably deserve some reward for creating this market, but I'd like to see other storefronts able to compete on price and provide the same level of service.

There is a program now that you can put on your PC to allow you to send directly to your Kindle any document, including non-DRM mobi books. A good example is Baen e-books. I used to send those through e-mail directly to my Kindle, now I download them to my PC and send them to all my Kindle devices at the same time.

Speaking of Baen, they sell Robert A. Heinlein books, as does Amazon. Some Amazon has that Baen doesn't, some Baen has that Amazon doesn't, some they both have.

Here's some examples where the "little" guy outprices (in USD) the "big" guy:

Have Spacesuit-Will Travel; Amazon 6.99, Baen 6.00
Citizen of the Galaxy, Amazon 6.75, Baen 6.00
Methuselah's Children, Amazon 6.35, Baen 6.00

I don't think a monopoly is a good thing at all; however, I also don't think Amazon is or will be a monopoly in e-books. One caveat, their competition needs to get off their butts and do something about it. Other than collusion that is.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Sure it probably has something to do with it. I just know that I've never made an international phone call in my life... so my experience with telco's deregulation has been nothing but: "no thank you", "no I'm not interested", "I'm staying with my current provider", "thanks, but no thanks." Not to mention fighting to get my original provider back when another provider illegally switched my service. My time is money too. And "One long-distance phone service" didn't waste my time... or ever piss me off.

I used to travel internationally a lot, and the savings is huge. Actually the immediate savings on calls just from one state to another saved me a fortune. My fiance was at Worcester Polly and I was at Oklahoma State when deregulation went through.