> That's not true. The fact of the matter is Amazon had a huge lion's share of the market for e-books (measured by $$$).
As does/did Apple with the iPod and the iTunes digital music store. Apple had 70%+ market share for over a decade and could dictate terms to publishers as well.
> They had such a huge monopoly position that they could dictate terms to all publishers, more than once they refused to carry a publishers e-books (effectively killing them) if a publisher didn't agreed to some terms that Amazon wanted. They would stop selling PHYSICALS books to push the contract.
The publishers decided to connect both physical books and eBooks rights in a contract. Amazon had to stop selling the physical books when those contracts expired.
> So not only did they do that, what they really like doing with selling Kindles. And a great way to sell Kindles is to discount the books below the actual selling price; eating the loss and making the publishers e-books on other platforms (as well as physical books) worth less. To a fair degree it didn't matter to Amazon if the prices were unsustainable, it fueled growth in their devices which fueled growth in their profits.
And then they would do something like push Prime since you could get free books that way (more loss for publishers) and Amazon would make up the money. And the publishers could either choose to go along with it and get a small price for each book or say no and get all their e-books pulled.
Plus Amazon had cable direct, which was a publishing platform that anyone could access. This meant that they had TONS of content by authors who were willing to sell it dirt cheap. This put the publishers in the same position that the media is right now competing with YouTube. And of course some of those books were actually really really good (Silo series by Howey) and became great sellers. Maybe even books that the publishers had passed on. It wasn't all garbage. So Amazon could show the publishers that they weren't nearly as necessary as the publishers thought they were.
Apple NEVER did anything like that. When Apple sold music it was at a flat price. They never undercut the publisher. After a little while to even let the publishers raise prices. And the whole time selling on the iTunes Music Store was an option since you could still sell CDs or sell to other DRM music stores like Amazon.
The DOJ looked at Amazon's books and found that despite the sale prices for many bestsellers the Amazon ebook division made profit as whole so it wasn't unsustainable. The bestseller ebook sale prices were no different than the Walmart hardcover book sale prices or a grocery milk sale prices i.e. a standard retailer loss-leader retail strategy. And publishers didn't lose money on these ebook as they were paid a set amount no matter Amazon's sale price.
Amazon's preference for lower digital prices were no different from Apple's. Prior to the iTunes Store, music publishers sold singles for $3.99 and preferred to sell whole albums. Apple negotiated that $.99 per track and that the album be broken up so customers could buy any individual track. Apple also let indies upload their music to the iTunes Store. And Apple had their own free music promotions; Apple used to give away a free single on the iTunes Store every week. All in service of course of the iPod hardware profits as Apple infamously barely made back their margin with iTunes Store squeezing out other digital music store competitors.
It's worth pointing out that the book market was particularly perverse compared to the music market. The book publishers practiced a version of windowing (some still to this day) where books are released exclusively as expensive hardcovers for months before later being made available as paperbacks/ebooks. That would be the equivalent of the music publishers demanding everybody purchase vinyl versions if they want an album at launch! Amazon's fight to reduce the prices of books and make simultaneous release of all versions was a clear win for customers even if it reduced the worth of hardcovers and publishers inflated profits.
> Amazon was easily the standard oil of the e-book market. They WERE the e-book market. No one ever went after them.
Amazon was not the first to the ebook market (Sony released the first ebook reader) but they were the best for customers. Just like Apple was the best music player for customers and reduced music prices despite having a monopoly.
>
Then Apple came along, is part of the deal with publishers that broke Amazons monopoly, and they got an antitrust suit. None of that makes any sense to me.
Well obviously even if you're right — Amazon was an evil monopoly bad for customers — that's does NOT give Apple and the publishers the right to break the law in order to take down Amazon. The Apple and publishers collusion was a textbook antitrust case and resulted in higher prices and poorer experiences for customers. It was a bad move by Apple and the publishers.