A Monopoly is Not Necessarily Bad

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Phogg

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.

I have no doubt telco deregulation worked well for many people. I'm just trying to address the statement that "a monopoly never benefits consumers." I preferred the stability that public utility monopolies provided, as opposed to the chaos that ensued as a result of deregulation. It worked better for me... a consumer.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

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.

I don't think that's really relevant. And still doesn't exactly make the Baen shopping experience equal with the Amazon shopping experience. When I wrote my earlier post, I was on my iPad. I can buy Kindle books on my iPad, and they appear on my Kindle. I can't download anything to my iPad and transfer it from there to my Kindle, because the iPad doesn't work like that. (Although I could get Baen to email the books to my Kindle, as mentioned. I haven't set that up. I'm happy enough to manage the Baen books through my netbook, but it still makes the process less convenient.)

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

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 6.6.35, Baen 6.00

That surprises me a bit. I thought Amazon would price-match, if they were the same product.

Other vendors can offer bundles and coupons, which allow them to compete indirectly on price. That's pretty much the only reason I've bought anything from Kobo.

[Barcey]

I don't fear an Amazon monopoly as long as they're acting as a reseller. It's easy to change retailers if they abuse the monopoly. I do fear (a little) any publishing monopoly wielding exclusive life plus 70 monopolies. That includes Amazon or any other company acting as the publisher. Laws can always be changed though.

[plib]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I have no doubt telco deregulation worked well for many people. I'm just trying to address the statement that "a monopoly never benefits consumers." I preferred the stability that public utility monopolies provided, as opposed to the chaos that ensued as a result of deregulation. It worked better for me... a consumer.

I've lived with three different phone utility monopolies in three different countries on three different continents. They were "stable", in fact the worst was so "stable" it could be confused with a dead parrot. As long as you could wait 6 weeks to 2 months to get a phone installed it was perfect, and it kept the phone bills really low! Service from the other two ranged from mediocre to barely adequate. Maybe it depends where you live but no one has ever changed my service except me and I can't remember the last time someone asked me if I wanted to change my provider.

In the meantime over the last year I've made calls to the UK, Ireland, Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Holland, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. I have 10,000 long-distance minutes per month from either my home phone or cell and unlimited time on any wi-fi or landline internet connection.

Total cost for that? $11 per month - or 5 and a half minutes of that UK call I made 20 years ago! I'll take deregulation anytime.

[Native]

Originally Posted by RDaneel54

There is a program now that you can put on your PC to allow you to send directly to your Kindle any document

This sent me searching about, but I can't find what you're referring to unless it's not what I'm thinking of. What program? I've got an old home-school computer program of some wonderful books. I'm not very computer savvy and it'd be great if I could find a simple way to get it onto my son's Kindle. Sorry to go off-topic, but thanks for any help.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by plib

Total cost for that? $11 per month - or 5 and a half minutes of that UK call I made 20 years ago! I'll take deregulation anytime.

That's perfectly clear. I'm fine with you enjoying the benefits of deregulation. I really am. I suspect many feel as you do. Now if you were only receptive to the idea that your feelings on the matter might not be entirely universal. That's all I've ever attempted to explain. The existing monopolies (telco and natural gas especially) were perfectly OK with this consumer. They weren't OK with you. Why are we even arguing? I'm not trying to say that all consumers should have been able to appreciate an efficient, government-regulated utilities monopoly. Far from it. I'm just saying that I did. You apparently didn't. So let's be done, shall we?

EDIT: that sounded harsher than I intended. What I meant was, I see no point in continuing to state; "I liked the old way/I like the new way."

And for clarification:

Maybe it depends where you live but no one has ever changed my service except me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_slamming

It happened a lot immediately following deregulation. My service was illegally switched at least twice that I recall. It was a PITA to fix each time.

[Skydog]

Originally Posted by Native

This sent me searching about, but I can't find what you're referring to unless it's not what I'm thinking of. What program? I've got an old home-school computer program of some wonderful books. I'm not very computer savvy and it'd be great if I could find a simple way to get it onto my son's Kindle. Sorry to go off-topic, but thanks for any help.

From Amazon's website:

Send to Kindle for PC

[plib]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

EDIT: that sounded harsher than I intended. What I meant was, I see no point in continuing to state; "I liked the old way/I like the new way."

Fair enough. Mine was probably a bit too evangelistic also. Different experiences obviously make for different preferences. In my case the changes were very beneficial and I'm guessing you've figured out where my preferences finished up but it wasn't meant to be antagonistic at all - well not to you anyway. The telcos might be a different matter. I'm happy to leave it at "Vive la différence".

[Native]

Originally Posted by Skydog

From Amazon's website:

Send to Kindle for PC

Thank you. I think that will do what I want.

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer;.........I preferred the stability that public utility monopolies provided, as opposed to the chaos that ensued as a result of deregulation. It worked better for [I

me[/I]... a consumer.

Abso-bloody-lutely .......

[emellaich]

Monopolies are not inherently evil. Eventually, anyone (any business) will make mistakes, make short-sighted decisions, or make 'evil' decisions. The problems is that if that business is a monopoly, there is no way for the market (consumers) to indicate their displeasure by going elsewhere.

It is quite possible that Amazon could be a benevolent monopoly. I don't know if they will indefinitely stay that way.

The biggest problem is that Amazon has shareholders. Shareholders are only satisfied if share prices are increasing, and this only happens if next year is even more profitable than this year. As long as the company is growing rapidly, they don't have to squeeze current businesses. Once it becomes mature, and growth slows, shareholders will pressure management to find increased profit in current businesses. The good news is that Amazon has quite a ways to go before it runs out of growth room. As a comparison, WalMart sales are 446 billion compared to Amazon sales of 48 billion.

I do agree, with others, however, that ebooks would be tough to monopolize over the long term. Digital delivery is cheap and it should be easy for others to enter the market. The toughest part would be getting the attention of customers who may not know how to find the new entrants.

[charmian]

I am not sure why Amazon would become a monopoly: most people don't read ebooks on systems where they can only read books from one vendor. The most popular device for reading ebooks is a computer, followed IIRC by mobile devices like smartphones, PMPs, and tablets (iPad and Android). The price of e-ink readers is dropping, and thus, the price of switching between vendors is too.

If Amazon gets a monopoly and then raises prices on people, won't that open a place for competition? (I actually think what the publishers are worried about is what if Amazon doesn't ever raise the prices)

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by charmian

(I actually think what the publishers are worried about is what if Amazon doesn't ever raise the prices)

Except that, of course, that under any system (wholesale or agency), they'd be getting however much per copy they decide they want - just under the wholesale model, it would not matter at all what price the consumer sees and the storefront can set whatever price they want.

[AlexBell]

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 .

But if you 'unzip' an ePub file then even with Notepad you'll get something you can work with - though of course it's easier to do with an HTML editor.

Stating that ePub files are in 'binary format' makes about as much sense as saying website files are in 'binary format.'

[DrNefario]

I imagine there's text in the new kindle format somewhere, too, if you have the right tools to unpack it.