B&N CEO on the future of Nook

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

. In the Middle ages they had the guilds, where (at least ideally) rules were followed that insured those who worked hard weren't run out of business.

Guilds??
Sorry, but no.

That is not why, historically, guilds were created.


https://www.ancient.eu/Medieval_Guilds/

Guilds of merchants and craft workers were formed in medieval Europe so that their members could benefit from mutual aid, production standards could be maintained, competition was reduced and, by acting collectively, a certain political influence could be achieved. Entry requirements to guilds became stricter over time as those who controlled the guilds became part of a richer middle class and set a higher membership fee for outsiders. This new bourgeoisie successfully sought to maintain their position above workers without the means or skills needed to run their own small businesses. There were two main types of guilds: merchant guilds for those who controlled trade in a particular item and craft guilds for skilled artisans such as weavers, shoemakers and bakers.

Guilds were created as barriers to entry, to keep newcomers out and enforce prices and practices. The memory of guilds is where price fixing and trusts come from. Guilds were unions of owners, not of employees. or consumers.

Guilds were anti-tech, anti-union, anti-progress.
*That* was rampant capitalism, nowhere ndar the restrained economic system of the western economies.

Look around and you'll find that where guilds were strongrst and hung on the longest is where modernization and living standards lagged the most.

Now, modern guilds are more typically unions and coops and professional associations, all good things for tbeir members even those have little concern for consumers or the "greater social good".

Like it or not the modern world is consumerist in focus.

Even the most authoritarian regimes know the masses must be dealt with carefully. That was the key failure of communism. And if the CCP regime falls in China that will be their undoing come the end. They are in a constant struggle to maintain control under their social contract of "prosperity in exchange for freedom". And that is getting harder and harder for non-economic reasons.

Western capitalism (because there's at least three others) needs antitrust to provide a brake to human nature because, yes, greed is an intrinsic trait of humans. (Just put a young child in front of a plate of candy and watch.) Animals too. (Junkyard dogs are not unique.) And because self regulation doesn't work. Fear yes, but absent the stick there is no carrot to prevent people of striving for their own best interests well beyond what might offend others sensibilities. And fear doesn't work too well, anyway.

Without effective antitrust regulating otherwise free commerce you get oligarchs and kleptocracies regardless of whether you have laissez faire, directed economies, or state-granted monopolies (which is what medieval guilds were.)

To date the only two ways to run an economy are still either market-driven and state-directed. And state directed has always led to stasis and collapse. Bad as rampant consumerism might strike many, the alternative is worse.

There is no long-term middle ground so far.
Even small attempts at state-directed ("national champions") has always led to inefficiency, lack of competitiveness, and come disruption time, collapse.

Self-restraint is non-existent. (Look into the Tragedy of the Commons. Samaritanism has limits.)
And directed economies always fail.

In the end it all comes down to efficiency.
Open markets are dynamic and self-correcting, as we've seen with ebooks, which are a textbook case. A market driven by change and innovation, hampered by producer attempts to limit competition and keep out new entrants, seeking to maintain the stasis prevailing since the 90's, until ebooks hit the mainstream.

Stasis has been losing steadily this past decade, the rear guard attempts of the quasi-guild of the BPHs have lost them most of their market power and now they're in danger of losing their ground level enablers.

We're about to enter the third era of ebooks and even stalwart pbookers like Daunt are realizing the hole they've dug for themselves.

I personally think it's too late for the parrot.
We'll see.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Guilds??
Sorry, but no.

That is not why, historically, guilds were created.

https://www.ancient.eu/Medieval_Guilds/

Guilds were created as barriers to entry, to keep newcomers out and enforce prices and practices. The memory of guilds is where price fixing and trusts come from. Guilds were unions of owners, not of employees. or consumers.

Guilds (the craft guilds, at least) were created for much more than "barriers to entry." They also barred unfair competition, insured high quality and performed charitable work. It wasn't ideal in practice, nothing is, but it was better than unbridled greed of "venture" capitalism (theft) we have today.

The craft guild policed its own members’ professional practices, and guild courts and officials investigated complaints of poor workmanship, unfair competition, and other problems, levying fines on those found in violation of the guild’s rules and standards.

Besides their economic and educational functions, guilds also served other purposes. A guild was often associated with a patron saint, and a local guild would maintain a chapel in the parish church to be used by its members. Guilds performed charitable work, not only among the poor and indigent among their own members but among the community at large. Guilds also built and maintained residences, called guildhalls, in which the membership would hold banquets and conduct official business.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/gui...de-association

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Guilds were anti-tech, anti-union, anti-progress.
*That* was rampant capitalism, nowhere ndar the restrained economic system of the western economies.

"Anti-tech?" Huh? "Anti-union?" By banding together? "Anti-progress?" How so? "Rampant capitalism?" In what sense? Maybe you're thinking merchant guilds and I'm thinking craft guilds. Not all guilds were merchant guilds, the craft guilds were their rivals and they were far more numerous.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Look around and you'll find that where guilds were strongrst and hung on the longest is where modernization and living standards lagged the most.

England? Germany?

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Now, modern guilds are more typically unions and coops and professional associations, all good things for tbeir members even those have little concern for consumers or the "greater social good".

Not talking about modern guilds.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Like it or not the modern world is consumerist in focus.

I know. I don't like it. Calling customers "consumers" is, in itself, demeaning. Just because something is, doesn't mean it's right.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Even the most authoritarian regimes know the masses must be dealt with carefully. That was the key failure of communism. And if the CCP regime falls in China that will be their undoing come the end. They are in a constant struggle to maintain control under their social contract of "prosperity in exchange for freedom". And that is getting harder and harder for non-economic reasons.

This has what to do with greed and its necessary supposed relationship to capitalism?

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Western capitalism (because there's at least three others) needs antitrust to provide a brake to human nature because, yes, greed is an intrinsic trait of humans. (Just put a young child in front of a plate of candy and watch.) Animals too. (Junkyard dogs are not unique.) And because self regulation doesn't work. Fear yes, but absent the stick there is no carrot to prevent people of striving for their own best interests well beyond what might offend others sensibilities. And fear doesn't work too well, anyway.

Lots of bad traits are intrinsic to human nature. It doesn't mean you glorify them or make greed (for example) an essential element of your economic system. Unlike animals, humans have free-will, they can decide to reign in their own appetites. Personally, greed has never been a problem for me. And kids eating candy until they get a stomach ache means they haven't learned proper behavior yet. That's why kids are minors under their tutelage of their parents – because they are immature, and will make poor (uniformed decisions). They need to be guided and protected until they learn how to control themselves. You don't say "greed is intrinsic we can't do anything about it," you say "quit being greedy, it's wrong."

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Without effective antitrust regulating otherwise free commerce you get oligarchs and kleptocracies regardless of whether you have laissez faire, directed economies, or state-granted monopolies (which is what medieval guilds were.)

Craft guilds were not monopolies. (I should have made it clear I was talking about craft guilds, not merchant guilds.) Unlike modern competition, they allowed all those who were in the guild to survive without undercutting one another. They also served the welfare of their communities. The also protected local merchants from outside merchants.

In modern Western "civilization," despite ineffectual anti-trust laws, we have corporations constantly becoming monopolies, we have collusion (gas prices "coincidentally" rising by the same rate at the same time throughout the same area), we have"venture capitalists" leveraging the value of established companies to run up debt, and then declaring bankruptcy and laying off thousands of workers. We have jobs sent overseas and H1B visas issued in corporations were native Americans are out of work (because they can be made to work for less). In other words, workers are totally at the mercy of fewer and fewer corporations.

I would rather have the guilds.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

To date the only two ways to run an economy are still either market-driven and state-directed. And state directed has always led to stasis and collapse. Bad as rampant consumerism might strike many, the alternative is worse.

One alternative you're missing is encouraging and protecting community businesses. When I was a kid (before the malls) there were still local businesses. Even in small towns (in attempt to get back on topic) there were often multiple local book stores. Then malls started coming in. Local businesses could move into them, but they had to pay several times the rate per square foot that national chains had to pay. It doesn't take a genius to guess how that worked out. Pretty soon the local businesses went belly up and all you had left were the national chains.

And now, with the decline of malls, it's consolidated a lot more. The real capper is that Walmart or Amazon are encouraged to come into communities with their huge warehouses and they get property taxes deferred for 10 years — so local businesses and property owners have to pay higher tax rates for the improvements necessary to bring their competition. Basically EVERYTHING is this country is rigged to benefit the huge corporations and give them advantages over small and regional businesses. This is not capitalism, it's theft. And it can be changed.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

There is no long-term middle ground so far.
Even small attempts at state-directed ("national champions") has always led to inefficiency, lack of competitiveness, and come disruption time, collapse.

Huge corporations have too many lobbyists and too many advantages. They've bought and paid for their politicians. This is called corruption.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Self-restraint is non-existent. (Look into the Tragedy of the Commons. Samaritanism has limits.)
And directed economies always fail.

Nope. Wrong on both counts. If self-restraint was non-existent than everybody would be rioting everywhere and taking whatever they wanted. Obviously, in a civilized society that doesn't happen. And it's not because the few cops keep from it from happening, it's because the majority of people restrain themselves. They live by a self-driven moral code. Greed is one of the many things they should (and often do) avoid.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

In the end it all comes down to efficiency.
Open markets are dynamic and self-correcting, as we've seen with ebooks, which are a textbook case. A market driven by change and innovation, hampered by producer attempts to limit competition and keep out new entrants, seeking to maintain the stasis prevailing since the 90's, until ebooks hit the mainstream.

Stasis has been losing steadily this past decade, the rear guard attempts of the quasi-guild of the BPHs have lost them most of their market power and now they're in danger of losing their ground level enablers.

We're about to enter the third era of ebooks and even stalwart pbookers like Daunt are realizing the hole they've dug for themselves.

I personally think it's too late for the parrot.
We'll see.

Basically, in the U.S., Amazon has a monopoly in eBooks. I think they only restraint on their pricing is what the market will bear. Too high and people will quit buying eBooks. It has nothing to do with competition. They really don't have any.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Any bookstores in that town?

There was a bookstore for a short while but they started selling coffee and meals and gave up on the books. In any case they weren't within walking distance. I wish there was one. I don't read print books anymore but I've always loved browsing in bookstores.

This is a town of 3,000 so it's probably not big enough to support a bookstore.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Capitalism does not require greed. Nor are we all greedy. Simply not true. Greed is not good (it's ridiculous that this has to be said).

Capitalism simply means "an economic system based on private ownership of capital." There's nothing there that requires greed. Nor does it require cheating your help or using predatory practices to destroy your competition. Or that you become a monopoly. Nor does it require buying a company to break it up for pieces and turning out thousands of workers. That's greed, not capitalism.

Capitalism doesn't "require" greed. It puts it to good use. It also doesn't require cheating. It works best when we cheat least.

Capitalism isn't about greed. We are. Have you ever asked for a raise because you thought you could get it? Whether you've earned it is something for your employer to worry about. Greed is about wanting more. Wanting more is a really big incentive to create and invent. It's part of human nature. Capitalism tries to help it become a more positive force.

Greed means, "excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves." I've never wanted or plotted to get something that rightfully belonged to someone else. I've just tried to make my own way, without harming someone else. Someone who is greedy doesn't care if they harm someone else (or some other company) so long as they get what they want.

The Merriam Webster definition of greed is "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed"

Ideally capitalism means free enterprise. Where everyone has a chance to succeed and where unfair practices are banned – where the rich are not allowed to undercut the poor (or the powerful can't undercut the weak). In the Middle ages they had the guilds, where (at least ideally) rules were followed that insured those who worked hard weren't run out of business.

That's the kind of capitalism I would like to see. Not the "suck the marrow out of 'em" venture capitalism that truly is pure greed.

I agree with a lot of that. There are certainly problems with capitalism. History has shown us a kind of pendulum effect where things get out of hand and we nudge the system a bit to straighten things out. Today there are some real problems but it's been worse at a lot of times in the past. I do love pendulums.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Lots of bad traits are intrinsic to human nature. It doesn't mean you glorify them or make greed (for example) an essential element of your economic system. Unlike animals, humans have free-will, they can decide to reign in their own appetites.

I'm not sure animals lack free will but I guess that's another issue.

The fact is that most of us, as we negotiate through life, try to make the best deal for ourselves and our families and we let the guy we're dealing with worry about what's best for him.

If a car salesman offered you a car at less than you thought was a fair price would you suggest that you should pay more of it as a way of reigning in your appetites? Or would you try to get him to throw in a longer warranty as well?

Of course I don't know you outside of this forum. You may be that saintly. I'm not and yet among people who know me I'm considered fairly trustworthy. I like capitalism because it brings me good books, good tech, good food, and now that I'm too old to work and my health ate up my retirement, Social Security and HUD subsidised housing. Thanks to our rich capitalist system I can still live in reasonable comfort. What a wonderful world!

Barry

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by barryem

Capitalism doesn't "require" greed. It puts it to good use. It also doesn't require cheating. It works best when we cheat least.

I'm heading down to Texas tomorrow and have some things to get ready so I'll just leave it with this (while dropping the discussion about guilds).

If someone puts capital to good use, that's not greed, that's simply good use of capital. But if a corporate wonk personally makes billion$ while, laying off workers or forcing them to reduce their pay or benefits — or by moving his factories to Asia where he can make use of wage slaves — that's greed. If the same corporate wonk uses a leveraged buyout as an instrument to take out excessive loans that are guaranteed to bankrupt the leveraged company, that's greed (theft) and the opposite of capitalism. Capital is anything reserved that is used to produce future goods or pay. I was a phone tech, my capital included my tools and testers (and my training) — they were what enabled me to make a living. If I had dug ditches for a living, my capital could be as simple as a shovel and my back. For a farmer, capital is seed grain — grain not needed for food that can be used for the future. "Greed" and "capital" need never appear in the same sentence. They are not related.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Guilds (the craft guilds, at least) were created for much more than "barriers to entry." They also barred unfair competition, insured high quality [...]

That is a bit po-tay-to, po-tah-to, though, isn't it?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by barryem

There was a bookstore for a short while but they started selling coffee and meals and gave up on the books. In any case they weren't within walking distance. I wish there was one. I don't read print books anymore but I've always loved browsing in bookstores.

This is a town of 3,000 so it's probably not big enough to support a bookstore.

Barry

Not many are, even much bigger ones.
(Borders and B&N store closures even in large suburbs prove it.)

In fact, bookstores have always been rare outside the biggest cities.
That's one of the reasons Bezos ramped Amazon up via books.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Guilds (the craft guilds, at least) were created for much more than "barriers to entry." They also barred unfair competition, insured high quality and performed charitable work. It wasn't ideal in practice, nothing is, but it was better than unbridled greed of "venture" capitalism (theft) we have today.

.

Craft guilds were in fact set up to limit competition. Seriously.
Every history book attests to it. Pretty intolerant, too. They raised worker mobs when tbey felt they needed it.

As for human nature, well, Hobbs didn't make his theories out of hand waving.
He spoke of what he saw and what he saw wasn't pretty.

And for human restraint and riots, check the news; they're yearly events somewhere. Although soccer riots haven't been in the news lately. But neither is soccer.

If you live in an enlightened commuity where all is cooperation, protecting the commons, and self-restraint, kudos.

But it sounds more like Shangri-la than Earth, where competition is the norm. Survival of the fittest.

And the commerce world has long been cutthroat, as your guilds proved. Literary in olden times.

But all that is history and in these post-modernist times, history is whatever fits the political narrative of the moment.

Biology is a different critter, though. Here's one example of a truly comletitive species, for the fun of it:

https://www.visionlearning.com/blog/...olution-greed/

Because, like it or not, competition is a real life necessity. Especially in commerce where you either compete all out or you fail. Socilalized restraint may be good and dandy in theory and academic "should be's" but the world of what is is about comoetition, not about offending sensibilities.

Nook came out of the gate determined to fight Kindle all the way but then they just...stopped. They had a quarter of the market and !indle was down to 56%. They had the brand, customer loyalty, and momentum. And tbdy stopped competing. Why? Only Riggio knows for sure but tbat sas at tbe same time they were caught downlisting Indie romance books, purposefully hiding them and limiting their exposure at the time. They stopped actively trying to give consumers, what they wanted. Yeah, they still trotted out new Nooks once in a while. Put them in a kiosk that slowly got moved out of the way in stores, stopped supporting desired features. Nooks were like the "special order" books.

Sort-of a "If you really, really, really want it, we'll sell it to you. But wouldn't you rather have this nice front table book?" kind of thing.

They stopped trying to sell ebooks and consumers noticed.
So consumers went elsewhere to get their needs and wants met.

Because that is what commerce is about; giving consumers what they want as long and as well as you can.

Commerce isn't some polite 19th century gentlemen's club where each member is guaranteed their "fair share" of sales without much exertion and is guaranteed a profit no matter what. That is in fact, guild-think.
But that went away with 19th century laissez faire and the great robber barons.
Teddy Roosevelt and the trustbusters did away with that retrograde thinking.
Consumers always had the money and today antitrust makes sure they have the power to choose. It is producers that have to compete for consumer money. Consumers have the power now, not trusts, not producers, not guilds; they're in control.

It wasn't that long ago that B&M was the big dog, telling publishers what kinds of covers they wanted on the books they were willing to stock on tbeir precious shelf space. When tbey announced tbey were going to set up a website, all the pundits wrote epitaphs for Amazon because they were going to get steamrolled by B&N deep pockets.

Turned out differently, didn't it?

Because B&N.com turned out to be a half-baked, half-hearted effort.
(Borders didn't even bother to build a site. They contracted with Amazon to fullfill any online orders that "might come buy". Because online was a fad, apparently.)
And Nook sent the same way.
They got to 25% and decided it was enough. No need to do much more to promote ebooks. Maybe tbey tbought somebody wouldn't like it?
They mailed it in, after that. Lost sight of tbe market, lost control of tbeir stock.

Death spiral ongoing.

Half-hearted competition gets you dead and buried. Or, buried and nearly dead, like Nook.

If Amazon has a commanding share of ebook sales in tbe US and UK it is beause they've never stopped competing, never stopped looking for new ways to bring reads to consumers. And making a buck or two along the way.

They played the commerce game the real world darwinian way, competing, not the theoretical, "leave something for the suckers", "enlightened" way. (Which is ilegal collusion, BTW.)

As a result, ebook history will be written by them.
At least until they get fat, dumb and lazy. Not yet, though.

[Gardenman]

They also decided they did not like their Print book customers

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Craft guilds were in fact set up to limit competition. Seriously.
Every history book attests to it. Pretty intolerant, too. They raised worker mobs when tbey felt they needed it.

As for human nature, well, Hobbs didn't make his theories out of hand waving.
He spoke of what he saw and what he saw wasn't pretty.

And for human restraint and riots, check the news; they're yearly events somewhere. Although soccer riots haven't been in the news lately. But neither is soccer.

If you live in an enlightened commuity where all is cooperation, protecting the commons, and self-restraint, kudos.

But it sounds more like Shangri-la than Earth, where competition is the norm. Survival of the fittest.

And the commerce world has long been cutthroat, as your guilds proved. Literary in olden times.

But all that is history and in these post-modernist times, history is whatever fits the political narrative of the moment.

Biology is a different critter, though. Here's one example of a truly comletitive species, for the fun of it:

https://www.visionlearning.com/blog/...olution-greed/

Because, like it or not, competition is a real life necessity. Especially in commerce where you either compete all out or you fail. Socilalized restraint may be good and dandy in theory and academic "should be's" but the world of what is is about comoetition, not about offending sensibilities.

Nook came out of the gate determined to fight Kindle all the way but then they just...stopped. They had a quarter of the market and !indle was down to 56%. They had the brand, customer loyalty, and momentum. And tbdy stopped competing. Why? Only Riggio knows for sure but tbat sas at tbe same time they were caught downlisting Indie romance books, purposefully hiding them and limiting their exposure at the time. They stopped actively trying to give consumers, what they wanted. Yeah, they still trotted out new Nooks once in a while. Put them in a kiosk that slowly got moved out of the way in stores, stopped supporting desired features. Nooks were like the "special order" books.

Sort-of a "If you really, really, really want it, we'll sell it to you. But wouldn't you rather have this nice front table book?" kind of thing.

They stopped trying to sell ebooks and consumers noticed.
So consumers went elsewhere to get their needs and wants met.

Because that is what commerce is about; giving consumers what they want as long and as well as you can.

Commerce isn't some polite 19th century gentlemen's club where each member is guaranteed their "fair share" of sales without much exertion and is guaranteed a profit no matter what. That is in fact, guild-think.
But that went away with 19th century laissez faire and the great robber barons.
Teddy Roosevelt and the trustbusters did away with that retrograde thinking.
Consumers always had the money and today antitrust makes sure they have the power to choose. It is producers that have to compete for consumer money. Consumers have the power now, not trusts, not producers, not guilds; they're in control.

It wasn't that long ago that B&M was the big dog, telling publishers what kinds of covers they wanted on the books they were willing to stock on tbeir precious shelf space. When tbey announced tbey were going to set up a website, all the pundits wrote epitaphs for Amazon because they were going to get steamrolled by B&N deep pockets.

Turned out differently, didn't it?

Because B&N.com turned out to be a half-baked, half-hearted effort.
(Borders didn't even bother to build a site. They contracted with Amazon to fullfill any online orders that "might come buy". Because online was a fad, apparently.)
And Nook sent the same way.
They got to 25% and decided it was enough. No need to do much more to promote ebooks. Maybe tbey tbought somebody wouldn't like it?
They mailed it in, after that. Lost sight of tbe market, lost control of tbeir stock.

Death spiral ongoing.

Half-hearted competition gets you dead and buried. Or, buried and nearly dead, like Nook.

If Amazon has a commanding share of ebook sales in tbe US and UK it is beause they've never stopped competing, never stopped looking for new ways to bring reads to consumers. And making a buck or two along the way.

They played the commerce game the real world darwinian way, competing, not the theoretical, "leave something for the suckers", "enlightened" way. (Which is ilegal collusion, BTW.)

As a result, ebook history will be written by them.
At least until they get fat, dumb and lazy. Not yet, though.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by rcentros

...
Basically, in the U.S., Amazon has a monopoly in eBooks. I think they only restraint on their pricing is what the market will bear. Too high and people will quit buying eBooks. It has nothing to do with competition. They really don't have any.

In the US, what restrains Amazon's eBook pricing is the publishers since due to agency pricing, they are setting the prices. I know this is counter to some peoples tightly held article of faith that the publishers are evil and only the much beloved and saintly Amazon restrains them, but that the reality of the situation.

Publishers make money by selling books. They are going to price them such that they maximize their profit. Economics 101 says there is a price point where you maximize your profits. Sell it for less, then you sell more books, but don't make any profit off them. Sell it for more, then you don't sell as many books. The fact that the general indie price for this style book moved up to a point fairly close to the publisher price point tends to prove the point.

Note, this style book means authors who write one or two books a year. Authors who churn out a book a month, a la the old pulp writers, use a different business model and have a different price point.

BTW, nice piece on guilds. Historically, guilds have served many purposes at time. They were even used as banks back before banks existed. History can't be reduced to simplistic narratives. History is created by people and people tend to be very complex.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

In the US, what restrains Amazon's eBook pricing is the publishers since due to agency pricing, they are setting the prices. I know this is counter to some peoples tightly held article of faith that the publishers are evil and only the much beloved and saintly Amazon restrains them, but that the reality of the situation.

I don't think it is counter to that view at all, it would be seen as supporting it.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

In the US, what restrains Amazon's eBook pricing is the publishers since due to agency pricing, they are setting the prices.

I disagree, since agency or no, there would be an MSRP.

If Kobo, Apple, Google, Walmart and B&N sold a best seller for $9.99 and Amazon sold it for $12.99, Amazon wouldn't stay the leader in e-book sales.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I disagree, since agency or no, there would be an MSRP.

If Kobo, Apple, Google, Walmart and B&N sold a best seller for $9.99 and Amazon sold it for $12.99, Amazon wouldn't stay the leader in e-book sales.

But then again, we know from history, that it would be more likely that Amazon would be selling the best seller for $9.99, covering their loses with the profits for other lines. while the other book stores sold at the higher price. That is how Amazon grabbed 90% of the market before Apple released the iPad and entered the eBook business.

We also know that when Amazon drove everyone else out and could set their own prices courtesy of Judge Cote, they did not maintain the low prices, but rather raised the prices since Sony had dropped out the market, B&N was struggling and Apple's prices were under Cote's control.

We don't have to theorize about what Amazon might have done without agency pricing, we know exactly what they did do.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

We don't have to theorize about what Amazon might have done without agency pricing, we know exactly what they did do.

What they did was never raise ebook prices above 'cover price'.

Look man, I'm not one of those that thinks that Amazon can do no wrong. But I'm not convinced that, but for agency, we would be paying more for ebooks. I'm just not seeing it.