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#16 | |
Guru
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Device: Kobo Touch
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Amazon's $9.99 price had a lot more to do with selling Kindles and developing an "ecosystem" than creating a monopoly. It worked on some people, not others - including me. I don't happen to believe that Amazon will ever be in a position to arbitrarily raise e-book prices to an inordinate level, there are too many easy ways to create alternative distribution systems, but if they do engage in abusive practices they're just as likely to get a visit from the DOJ as Apple and the BPH did. The DOJ, quite rightly, is unwilling to accept current abusive practices on the basis that they might, possibly, maybe prevent some other abusive practice in the future. Last edited by plib; 04-14-2012 at 02:24 PM. |
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#17 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD
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#18 |
Is that a sandwich?
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Device: Nook Glowlight Plus
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"ebook distribution system"
Does that include Kindle research and development, its manufacturing, marketing and support? |
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#19 | |
Guru
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Device: Kobo Touch
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Correspondence to the Department, including the Attorney General, may be sent to: U.S. Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20530-0001 Phone Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000 |
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#20 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD
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#21 | |
Karma Kameleon
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Karma: 26738313
Join Date: Aug 2009
Device: iPad Mini, iPhone X, Kindle Fire Tab HD 8, Walmart Onn
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The publishers were NOT happy with what Amazon was doing. Amazon was threatening the publishers business. Lee |
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#22 | ||
Grand Master of Flowers
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Karma: 8389072
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Naptown
Device: Kindle PW, Kindle 3 (aka Keyboard), iPhone, iPad 3 (not for reading)
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Quote:
And note that the $9.99 price was applied to NY times bestsellers - a group of about 40 books out of the million or so books offered. The Nook was the first real competition to the Kindle, using a similar model plus (initially) cheaper hardware prices. The Nook quickly took about 1/4 of the market. By the time the iPad was introduced, Amazon was down to about 65% of the US e-book market. Note that agency pricing hasn't really reduced Amazon's marketshare (it may be 60% now), but it has driven a lot of independent competitors out of business. Apple's claim that they were fighting an evil monopoly is basically just self-serving hot air. While I think it might be more difficult to pin price fixing on Apple as opposed to the publishers, they certainly weren't doing consumers any favors. Quote:
There is this tinfoil-hat conspiracy holding that it's bad for a company to offer low prices because then they will outcompete the competition and, when they are gone, raise prices. However, this *never* happens. People have been claiming this about Walmart for decades, and we're still waiting for them to raise prices. |
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#23 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Location: near Philadelphia USA
Device: Kindle Kids Edition, Fire HD 10 (11th generation)
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#24 |
Martin Kristiansen
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Location: Johannesburg
Device: Kindle International Ipad 2
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Showing up with a product "that just works" before anyone else bothers to do so constitutes evil monopolistic behavior? One day another company will bother to roll out a reader with an ecosystem to the rest of the planet and they will find Amazon already there. I guess they will then also cry foul against Amazon.
This is about Apple and the big 6. Dragging Amazon into it and making accusations against them is just muddying the water. |
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#25 | ||
Wizard
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Location: Canada
Device: Kobo H2O / Aura HD / Glo / iPad3
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Quote:
I happen to believe they were selling best sellers at $9.99 because they knew what they were paying for the equivalent hard cover and were knocking off a couple of bucks. Real cost savings from not having to deal with delivering paper. Once they demonstrated to the publishers it was the correct price they should have been able to renegotiate their contract. The publishers just refused to pass on the savings. I don't believe for a minute that this was life or death for the publishers. It was about maximizing profit. If Amazon develops a monopoly I expect the price to be the market price. Jeff Bezos understands customer loyalty. Watch the Charlier Rose interview from when the Kindle was launched. He said that customers are loyal until someone else offers them a better price or better service. Any company with a large e-commerce site can sell ebooks and would be happy to jump on an opportunity of Amazon trying to drive up the price. I've never bought a book from Amazon so I don't believe they'll ever get a true monopoly. If they maintain market dominance they will be able to demand favourable terms from the suppliers but if the authors sign exclusive deals with Amazon they'll get what they deserve. Quote:
The music industry was only selling complete albums rather then individual songs. Their $20 album was the equivalent of the book publishers hard cover price. Apple allowing customers to pay 99 cents for a single song was viewed as the death of their industry too but it was the only strategy that was working for digital music. |
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#26 | |
Enthusiast
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Karma: 502326
Join Date: Feb 2011
Device: Kindle
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The publishers colluded together because they were afraid that Amazon *wouldn't* raise the cost of ebooks. This fantasy some people are clinging to where the brave publishers and Apple fight against the Evil Amazon Empire to prevent them gaining a monopoly so they can raise prices is just PR bollocks. Last edited by Xoanon; 04-15-2012 at 03:25 AM. |
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#27 | |
Basculocolpic
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Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: Sweden
Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Kindle 4SO, Kindle for Android, Sony PRS-350 and PRS-T1
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Quote:
Now, despite that; I do think Wal-Mart is charging higher prices when they gain a monopolistic position in a local market. Granted, they don't do it by raising prices, they do it by squeezing suppliers. It is much more efficient for a retailer to lower their purchasing costs (no uproar in media) then raising their sales price. In the end, the consumer doesn't benefit from Wal-Mart's lower costs. |
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#28 | |
Wizard
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Location: Washington, DC
Device: Ipad, IPhone
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Walmart has financially strong competitors like Target and Tesco to deal with. BN , Amazon's biggest competitor, isn't financially strong at all and may go bankrupt like Borders. If that happens, expect the terms of the settlement to be revisited. Amazon will at least first do what Walmart has been doing and press down on suppliers margins. First publishers and then authors will lose money. According to Mike Shatzkin, consumers are likely to see lower prices and less quality nonfiction and fiction . We'll see a sort of Smashwordsification of the book market. Great if you like that sort of thing I guess. Everyone But Amazon will simply grit their teeth and hold on for the next 2 years and then return to full on agency pricing and then deal with a bigger and more powerful Amazon then.. |
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#29 | ||||
Professional Contrarian
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Device: Kindle 4 No Touchie
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Actually Sony was the first big player in the market and a serious competitor long before the Nook launched. A few small stores like Fictionwise and Mobileread (bought by Amazon) were also in the market.
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Setting minimum retail prices isn't automatically illegal, by the way, per Leegin vs PSKS. Quote:
Amazon might not subsequently raise prices, but they will very likely put the squeeze on authors, self-publishers and publishers so they can increase their margins. They could also rail on new competitors, and nip the competition in the bud. When Standard Oil was broken up, it wasn't because "consumer prices were too high," nor did the breakup necessarily result in lower consumer prices. The perceived problem was that Standard Oil was too big and put the squeeze on a whole industry. AT&T and T-Mobile's merger might have resulted in lower prices for the consumer, but would also have concentrated too much of the mobile business into a small number of companies. |
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#30 |
Cynical Old Curmudgeon
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Location: Halifax, Canada
Device: Kobo Mini, Kobo Arc, HTC Desire C
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In most jurisdiction, a monopoly's effect on competitors is legally immaterial. All that matters is their effect on consumers.
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