French culture minister: "Allowing publishers to fix prices is best"

[stonetools]

Harping blindly and shrilly about Amazon (or Walmart or any other low cost retailer) is to willfully ignore the rest of the ways those retailers satisfy consumer needs. Amazon (to focus on the industry whipping-boy) isn't just a low price leader, they are also a customer service leader, they are a delivery speed/cost leader, they are a catalog size leader, they are an accessibility leader... Alll those things matter to consumers to one extent or another

You make good points, but in the end miss the main point. A B&M store can out customer service and out anything Amazon, but if the customer just gets the benefits of the service, then leaves the store to buy it cheaper on Amazon that night, all the B&M store has done is help Amazon to its detriment .

No airy talk about "new business models " or the "need to adapt" is going to solve that.

[sabredog]

No, that is called consumer choice.

[ProfCrash]

And yet Target signed an agreement with Apple to have mini-Apple stores in Targets. That doesn't have anything to do with the move to not sell Kindles, Sony's, and other e-readers. All those Apples products can be used to surf the web and price shop, which makes Target's supposed outrage with Amazon more then a little silly.

[dreams]

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[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

You're thinking of Canute.

Ah, yes.
I favor the greeks (Athena especially) over the nordics (Odin's crew are so dreary! Although I like Loki's sense of humor.) and it tends to trip me from time to time.

Of course, these days I'm in the extreme minority.

[Laridae]

Originally Posted by stonetools

What the French Minister is saying is that in effect, such collusion should be legal in order to promote a higher societal good than cheaper books.

Then this is where the issue turns Political.

He's using this as a tool for implementing Social Policy, which, presumably is what his electors want him to do in his part of the world.

But, over here in more-capitalism-oriented N.A, this would be considered, dare I say it: "Socialism", which I would expect to generate immoderate responses ranging up to apoplexy!