Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[notimp]

Time for another ideological push.

Guys, Gals. if you make a point, make the point. Dont let yourselves being sidetracked by "on the other hand - it would be reasonable to.." Let the open discussion produce those compromises, dont rush to them to avoid potential arguments in the first place. At this point in the timeline its a little late for political correctness.. Considering, that Amazon already has put every part of this thing into play and started the "let us redefine books" process about two months ago. By producing the new facts.

A good percentage of the unjust nature of what Amazon is trying to pull right now lies in the interaction of interests that a few months ago were separate entities, and now are all under the same ownership and vail of interests. Pushing societys interests out of the way. If you are a consumer only - at heart, Amazons model is ideal. If you are more than a mindless short term rational driven zombie, it is probably the worst abomination since "what publishing meant" in the dark ages. Before Gutenberg democratized the production of books.

(Fitting headline suggestion no blog will run with, because *meh* and *sweet ad money*: Amazon, the Anti-Gutenberg, 2015 - *)

So when you argue - HEY, they are effing (please allow me the pointed phrase) every last bit of culture development and private (with the exception of themselves) or public archiving on the sector, dont let that be countered by - "but copyright law must be enforceable, so I guess..."

Yes it must be, at least to the point where it is a sufficient deterrent - and I really mean that, but before you get hot and bothered over industry laws being broken (and authors suffering because of it (Paulo Coelho at least differentiated between a for free seeding into an unknown enthusiast market and when the product is mainstream ready and your bottom line (profit) gets slashed)) - maybe take a step back and look at the aspect, that all works of culture - under the new Amazon regime - get corporatized. Moved into the de facto ownership (production, distribution, feature choice ("no - you cant copy more than, ..")) of said company.

Yes you can READ them on an Amazon produced (and in fringe cases, just registered) device, but that really is everything you get to do with it. As a person, and as a society. And Amazon aside, will - we allow this to be lost culture, twenty years from now, when Amazon does a Micosoft and tanks. Which by the way is the primary reason we drive people to remove DRM as soon as they can - because even the notion of a "reading license" isnt publicly negotiated. Not in the least.

The only reason it exists is, because those Big Shots made it up, and in the age of internet business models - users have no rights. At all. Prima facie. Not even to negotiate. (Because it is very expensive when 100000 users start sueing against your business practices, while at the same time, your business (if you dont get your monopoly gifted to you) just gets profitable at user 99000, because the lifetime value you draw from a user is sub 10 USD - (think online journalism, or app developer more than publishing house)) we - and here the retelling of the story starts to differ -

a. accepted it at face value
b. only accepted it because everyone knew that it couldnt be enforced, and a culture of teaching people how to circumvent it became broadly circulated, even in this forum.

If you want to read something, you just ask Amazon, now. Right? You buy their devices - even if people due to the lack of better knowledge or opportunities, publish f.e. scientific texts in full, only on Amazon.

In europe this discussion is provoked more easily, because right now - right now, Amazon is breaking almost all cultural regulations and user rights, previous generations have fought for - and they only get away with it, because we defined eBooks to be "something new", "something internety" that doesnt get the user side protections a paper book gets.

But the authors swallowed it. And the publishers sold off their rights to make an eBook for a cut of the profits.

So ask yourself - which of the "storylines" - Pirates eat your lunch, mostly/eBooks must at least be open enough, that not only one entity (Amazon) is allowed to produce them - has won already.

Your role now is to reflect on it, not to copy the few overly simplistic catchphrases one side or the other might produce. And if you catch yourself repeating the last sentence of a commercial you just saw at the movies - maybe, just maybe - you really are drinking the kool aid.

Its not the Pirates that are suffering, in fact Amazon is still catering to that audience, because if they would close this vector, audiences would move against it. Amazon is just permanently ruining the existing cultural landscape, by moving written content under the mantle of a ruleset they exclusively control.

They argue it brings better protection - but right now, thats mostly a bluff..

Think about those issues, dont just repeat one liners. Thats what reddit is for.
-

Also azw could be opened shortly after it went into distribution as the mainstream format, partly because the authoring tools had to be seeded into the broader market, before they hit the switch.

On kfx it was an immediate, silent affair, not even broadly reported on by the product blogs that do the second hand marketing nowadays. For jump change.

Please ask yourself if - "the best case scenario for consumers is, that calibre somehow will be able to integrate reverse engineered format support a year after the broad distribution of the format was started" sounds very enticing to you.

Again - this is not a tech issue, where knowing the workaround (which doesnt exist at the time speaking) matters, this is a social issue - where adoption rate is king.

Also - no, the main purpose of the new fileformat (kfx) definitely is not to give iPad owners better pictures. Not even close. But we can also talk about the segmentation of the file format, where - Amazon, because it also owns the distribution infrastructure, can easily distribute a "book" that is cut into multiple files (and can only be read (= reproduced) that way). Greetings from the Android side of their ecosystem. So now we zip them up, then rename them and then need a recompiler just before the upload process, lets say Calibre again - so the distributed format never can be the actual format again, which means...

Maybe I should start giving away prices for answers not entirely ignoring "impact on the ecosystem"..

Or maybe to those coming up with good answers to those problems, because - all I ever end up at is -- we have lost the war.

Spectacularly so.

To add insult to injury: While the establishment was sleeping.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by notimp

Time for another ideological push.

[...]

To add insult to injury: While the establishment was sleeping.

Ummm.. could you add a tl;dr summary?

[notimp]

I dont cater to reddit users, I'm afraid.

(If the question somehow was genuine, in regard to the part you quoted: The media in this sector didn't pick it up and ran with it as a "file format - new features" story, and this forum was late in addressing the issue - so there was no public debate. At all. Publishers most likely were bought out of the occasion and authors went with whatever they were told to. At least I dont have a better explanation for the last part.)

- but thinking about it,

Amazon, the Anti-Gutenberg, 2015 - *

is short, catchy and pretty descriptive for what I wrote in the posting above.

[notimp]

Or maybe I should put it into a fable...

First they took the meaning of "hacker" from us, and changed it a little - I mean, look at the security threat -
- then they took the meaning of "pirate" from whoever identified themselves that way, and made it their own,
- then they took the "book" and turned it into the best commercial good there ever was ("costfree" in production, distribution and storage, small in size and therefore delivered within seconds, ecosystem payed for by the user, and protected in all aspects) and sold us usage licenses on it
- then they made all aspects of it (production, distribution and format) a monopoly with kfx
- buying the rights to create an ebook out of publishers hands
- then they added a few saveguards within the processes so they cant be reversed easily
- somehow all without attracting media attention or a public discussion
- then they told us, we would get new features only in exchange for further regressions on our rights
- and started to bring also public domain books under their rule system
- while at the same time owning up to 90% of the commercial market

But in the end it is all for the greater good of the author, who will get paid the promise of an increased bottom line, because piracy is still allowed to exist and the user, because they did it to provide higher resolution pictures on the iPaid. Mainly. Certainly.

So they destroyed what Gutenberg invented (democratization of the production of books), and all was good - because almost no one proclaimed to notice, so sad - the story just couldnt be told in 150 characters or less.

The end.

(But we got Spotify, Instagram and Uber to show for it - yes, we truly are the smart generation. One click! Patented.

It's almost over now.)

[HarryT]

I really think you're being a little paranoid. If you dislike Amazon's business practices, the answer is simple: buy your books elsewhere. Amazon aren't the only game in town.

[johnnyb]

I think you are making 100% correct point but am happy, to put it in Morrissey's terms, that America is not the world. So while the pressure of Amazon may bear heavier on the US market, it does less so on other parts of the world.
I for one have requested a number of features that make life much easier and the platform less focused on Amazon content and attached a sort of mental deadline to my continued investment in the Amazon ecosystem, i.e. if they do not deliver these features within a certain amount of time (support of personal docs on PC and Mac is one of them, enhanced typography for personal docs etc), I am going to move my entire library to another ecosystem. Lucky for me there is one emerging in Europe (the German tolino “alliance”) that has “byob” (“bring your own books”) built into their system as a core feature (and very comfortably I might add, completely with sync, annotations and DRM if you still happen to have these books). And their devices are improving greatly with every iteration (and are generally selling very well)...

[notimp]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I really think you're being a little paranoid. If you dislike Amazon's business practices, the answer is simple: buy your books elsewhere. Amazon aren't the only game in town.

- Character assassination.

- If you dont like it leave it.

- There still are alternatives.

Why? Because I am drawing out the business case for the actions Amazon has taken up to this point? I dont take it personal (in fact I am looking at the issue from a somewhat professional standing) - so why do you? Take it to a personal level. Please provide your reasoning. Is it a feeling...?

Dont like it, leave it. Is the standard counter of online marketing to any criticism voiced about a product, because it plays with the concept of an inner group (we) with which the other (outsider) doesnt agree - and the two cleanly separating without one influencing the other. But this time I am speaking for the users side - still lacking the authority to frame the issue. I'm trying to get it in a discussion. Bring counterpoints, dont tell me to leave the topic.

Amazon owns close to 50% or more of the eBook market in every major territory they entered (The english speaking ones, Germany, Japan, ...) and in most they are the market leader. As this is a discussion about monopolies (or "size effects"), it is only a small start, that I should be able to vote not just with my money (to little or no effect), but also by trying to generate a public debate. Fair?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by notimp

Or maybe I should put it into a fable...

First they took the meaning of "hacker" from us, and changed it a little - I mean, look at the security threat -

No idea what you mean by that.

- then they took the meaning of "pirate" from whoever identified themselves that way, and made it their own,

The word "pirate" is a ridiculous over-dramatization, yes. I agree.

- then they took the "book" and turned it into the best commercial good there ever was ("costfree" in production, distribution and storage, small in size and therefore delivered within seconds, ecosystem payed for by the user, and protected in all aspects) and sold us usage licenses on it

The ebook is not an Amazon exclusive, though.
And what you are describing is every vendor's idea of an ebook....

- then they made all aspects of it (production, distribution and format) a monopoly with kfx

There is no KFX monopoly, but I'm beginning to think you have a monopoly on paranoia.

- buying the rights to create an ebook out of publishers hands

A publisher can make all the ebooks they like. Please explain WTF you think that statement means.

- then they added a few saveguards within the processes so they cant be reversed easily

I'll grant you that for KFX.
Please remember that AZW3 was just as closed. Then they got around Amazon's closed binary format.
Such is life as the consumer -- corporations develop proprietary formats, public-spirited individuals figure out how it ticks.

Why is DOCX any better?

- somehow all without attracting media attention or a public discussion

If you don't count this discussion, but since it is a non-issue that's all right anyway.

- then they told us, we would get new features only in exchange for further regressions on our rights

It. Is. A. Freaking. Book.

No new features are required or wanted.

I am serenely happy with my reverse-engineered AZW3.
KFX can take a flying jump off the Empire State Building for all the value I see in it.

But I could say the exact same thing about the differences between AZW3 and EPUB.
Which are however, legitimately better formats than MOBI.

- and started to bring also public domain books under their rule system

Personal attacks are not allowed. Comment deleted. --moderator

- while at the same time owning up to 90% of the commercial market

I'm pretty sure those numbers are heavily debated, not that it matters, because 90% isn't everything.
But as I said, it is irrelevant, because Amazon isn't quite there, no matter how much B&N, Kobo, iBooks, GPB, etc. try to hand Amazon the market.

But in the end it is all for the greater good of the author, who will get paid the promise of an increased bottom line, because piracy is still allowed to exist and the user, because they did it to provide higher resolution pictures on the iPaid. Mainly. Certainly.

So they destroyed what Gutenberg invented (democratization of the production of books), and all was good - because almost no one proclaimed to notice, so sad - the story just couldnt be told in 150 characters or less.

The end.

(But we got Spotify, Instagram and Uber to show for it - yes, we truly are the smart generation. One click! Patented.

It's almost over now.)

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by notimp

- Character assassination.

- If you dont like it leave it.

- There still are alternatives.

Why? Because I am drawing out the business case for the actions Amazon has taken up to this point? I dont take it personal (in fact I am looking at the issue from a somewhat professional standing) - so why do you? Take it to a personal level. Please provide your reasoning. Is it a feeling...?

Dont like it, leave it. Is the standard counter of online marketing to any criticism voiced about a product, because it plays with the concept of an inner group (we) with which the other (outsider) doesnt agree - and the two cleanly separating without one influencing the other. But this time I am speaking for the users side - still lacking the authority to frame the issue. I'm trying to get it in a discussion. Bring counterpoints, dont tell me to leave the topic.

Amazon owns close to 50% or more of the eBook market in every major territory they entered (The english speaking ones, Germany, Japan, ...) and in most they are the market leader. As this is a discussion about monopolies (or "size effects"), it is only a small start, that I should be able to vote not just with my money (to little or no effect), but also by trying to generate a public debate. Fair?

Quit it with the ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees with you.
You're making me bored.

[eschwartz]

You know, I'd really appreciate it if we could get back on topic.
Or at least make up our minds what the topic is.

Wasn't this originally about the closed firmware?

[dickloraine]

You just describe one side of the story. But look for example at self publishing. There amazon is a driving force, allowing much more people to enter the market.
Publishers combat amazon on all fronts, I don't see them handing the production of books over.
Much of what you rightfully dislike has its source or solution not at amazon. Amazon practically invented the ebook market, more or less against the big piblishers. That they now own that market has much to do with the other players in the book market beeing unable to react to new things.
Taking away customer rights is not amazons doing, but whole branches of business. The music, movie, software, book industries to name just a few. It is bad politic and must be solved there.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Quit it with the ad hominem attacks on anyone who disagrees with you.
You're making me bored.

I disagree with that. Noimp's response to HarryT was a precise analysis of HarryT's post. How can that be an ad hominem attack?
If it is an ad hominem attack, then HarryT must be attacking himself

Originally Posted by dickloraine

You just describe one side of the story. But look for example at self publishing. There amazon is a driving force, allowing much more people to enter the market.
Publishers combat amazon on all fronts, I don't see them handing the production of books over.
Much of what you rightfully dislike has its source or solution not at amazon. Amazon practically invented the ebook market, more or less against the big piblishers. That they now own that market has much to do with the other players in the book market beeing unable to react to new things.
Taking away customer rights is not amazons doing, but whole branches of business. The music, movie, software, book industries to name just a few. It is bad politic and must be solved there.

That's a counter to noimp's position.

But I suspect noimp is not only talking about the current situation, but how he sees it going into the future. Hence his "fable" and the (future) control of public domain material via format dominance. As I understand him, he sees the potential of a closed file format becoming the de facto standard in the future, and solely controlled by Amazon.

Amazon was named after the biggest river in the world to express its ideal and goal of supremacy in the markets of its choice. Noimp is interpreting Amazon's increasing control of electronic publishing and distribution in the context of Amazon's own stated ambition: Market domination. So I think there us nothing very debatable on that point. It's a given, and is the way you would expect any extremely competent large company to function. It is interesting to watch how Amazon is attempting to attain its goal. For the most part I don't see anything controversial in noimp's analysis of Amazon's strategy.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I disagree with that. Noimp's response to HarryT was a precise analysis of HarryT's post. How can that be an ad hominem attack?
If it is an ad hominem attack, then HarryT must be attacking himself

Well, not counting his casual dismissal of anyone unable to follow a byzantine disorganized post as a "reddit user" and "[...] dont just repeat one liners. Thats what reddit is for."
And not counting the general impression I get, that he believes anyone who isn't just as concerned about Amazon as he is, is an idiot who has a 150-character attention span and would rather spend their time on Instagram and Spotify than pay attention to the Sacred Legacy of Gutenberg.

Think of the children!

...

HarryT was making an excellent wonderful point.
Vote with your wallet. Convince others of your ways.

And that suggestion is not equivalent to "tell[ing] me to leave the topic".

Originally Posted by Rizla

That's a counter to noimp's position.

But I suspect noimp is not only talking about the current situation, but how he sees it going into the future. Hence his "fable" and the (future) control of public domain material via format dominance. As I understand him, he sees the potential of a closed file format becoming the de facto standard in the future, and solely controlled by Amazon.

Amazon was named after the biggest river in the world to express its ideal and goal of supremacy in the markets of its choice. Noimp is interpreting Amazon's increasing control of electronic publishing and distribution in the context of Amazon's own stated ambition: Market domination. So I think there us nothing very debatable on that point. It's a given, and is the way you would expect any extremely competent large company to function. It is interesting to watch how Amazon is attempting to attain its goal. For the most part I don't see anything controversial in noimp's analysis of Amazon's strategy.

Oh my. Because Amazon wants to be the dominant seller of commercial ebooks therefore all Public Domain books will one day be ONLY available in KFX.

I'm terrified already.

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I disagree with that. Noimp's response to HarryT was a precise analysis of HarryT's post. How can that be an ad hominem attack?
If it is an ad hominem attack, then HarryT must be attacking himself

Stop hitting yourself

[johnnyb]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well, not counting his casual dismissal of anyone unable to follow a byzantine disorganized post as a "reddit user" and "[...] dont just repeat one liners. Thats what reddit is for."
And not counting the general impression I get, that he believes anyone who isn't just as concerned about Amazon as he is, is an idiot who has a 150-character attention span and would rather spend their time on Instagram and Spotify than pay attention to the Sacred Legacy of Gutenberg.

This is not at all what has been implied (the reddit comment was a humorous reply to another post requesting a “tl;dr” version), his post is not disorganized (this is just rude), he never called anyone an idiot.
On the other hand, your post is sprawling with sarcasm, which, by the rules of this board, is not ok!