Boy, aren't we all glad the DOJ protected poor little Amazon from the evil and all-powerful Apple e-book conspiracy and monopoly.
The lawsuit had nothing to do with Amazon.
Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
101–110 of 125 posts
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
"corrective measures employed by Apple" what were the measures and what were they correcting? And how did the Justice Department get it wrong. Apple colluded with the publishers to set the price, and forced Amazon to sell for the same price. With mainly the people being screwed (well in some cases the publishers actually lost money too) Unfortunately the corrective measures taken SINCE the ruling having really made m…
> Apple colluded with the publishers to set the price, and forced Amazon to sell for the same price Apple gave the publishers leverage to use with Amazon, which is a wee bit different. But I'll give you "colluded", because it doesn't really matter. I wish Google would actually find the various articles I've read in the past about this, but my recollection is that various economists have explained that this sort of "c…
> Basically, many people have looked at the overall book market both before and Apple entered it, and found that, when looking at the entire market instead of just e.g. the NYT bestsellers list, prices were not higher after Apple showed up.
Basically, many people have looked at the 5 publishers accused of collusion and have seen that prices were higher AFTER the collusion
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Apple colluded with the publishers to set the price, and forced Amazon to sell for the same price Apple gave the publishers leverage to use with Amazon, which is a wee bit different. But I'll give you "colluded", because it doesn't really matter. I wish Google would actually find the various articles I've read in the past about this, but my recollection is that various economists have explained that this sort of "c…
> Basically, many people have looked at the overall book market both before and Apple entered it, and found that, when looking at the entire market instead of just e.g. the NYT bestsellers list, prices were not higher after Apple showed up. Basically, many people have looked at the 5 publishers accused of collusion and have seen that prices were higher AFTER the collusion
Are you trying to claim that somehow this whole affair affected book prices for the smaller publishers that didn't have agreements with Apple? Because for both of us to be right, all the smaller publishers must have dropped their prices precipitously to offset this supposed increase across the board in the prices of the 5 big publishers.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#104These articles can really go either way, but NYT seems to continuously go the publisher side. Theres not a single Amazon statement in this article. Remember that the majority of publishers just recently colluded with Apple to essentially fuck over Amazon. Why would we afford them the presumption of goodwill here?
> Remember that the majority of publishers just recently colluded with Apple to essentially fuck over Amazon. Well, that's certainly how the Justice Department chose to see it. That doesn't make that statement the objective truth. I still don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that the new entrant in a market is "fuck[ing] over" the dominant player. Especially when countless economists have weighed in sayi…
I still don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that the new entrant in a market is "fuck[ing] over" the dominant player.
Because Apple leveraged an existing market where they were the dominant player (iOS). You could've said the same thing about Internet Explorer being a new entrant to the browser market, back when they fucked over Netscape.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Remember that the majority of publishers just recently colluded with Apple to essentially fuck over Amazon. Well, that's certainly how the Justice Department chose to see it. That doesn't make that statement the objective truth. I still don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that the new entrant in a market is "fuck[ing] over" the dominant player. Especially when countless economists have weighed in sayi…
I still don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that the new entrant in a market is "fuck[ing] over" the dominant player. Because Apple leveraged an existing market where they were the dominant player (iOS). You could've said the same thing about Internet Explorer being a new entrant to the browser market, back when they fucked over Netscape.
iOS is not a market in of itself. It certainly wasn't the dominant way to read eBooks (the Kindle was, to the best of my knowledge). You're trying to narrowly define a market purely for the purposes of claiming Apple was the dominant player, but you aren't explaining how Apple could leverage iOS in any fashion.
And even if you do purely concern yourself with reading eBooks on smartphones and tablets (and ignore the fact that iBooks doesn't even exist on Android devices, and consider the Kindle to not count because it's not a general-purpose tablet), the Kindle iOS app still was the dominant player there. Apple could not leverage their ownership of iOS to give an unfair advantage to iBooks. The only advantage it had was that visiting the App Store for the first time would suggest you download iBooks, but the Kindle app had plenty of promotion within the App Store as well.
I also find your attempt to claim this is analogous to Internet Explorer to be preposterous for multiple reasons. Not only did Microsoft literally bundle it with Windows, it was a free competitor to the then-paid Netscape Navigator, and there wasn't an established market for web browsers at that point anyway. Microsoft also enjoyed an overwhelming monopoly in the desktop OS market with Windows, whereas Apple has never had a monopoly in the smartphone market with iOS.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Basically, many people have looked at the overall book market both before and Apple entered it, and found that, when looking at the entire market instead of just e.g. the NYT bestsellers list, prices were not higher after Apple showed up. Basically, many people have looked at the 5 publishers accused of collusion and have seen that prices were higher AFTER the collusion
Are you trying to claim that somehow this whole affair affected book prices for the smaller publishers that didn't have agreements with Apple? Because for both of us to be right, all the smaller publishers must have dropped their prices precipitously to offset this supposed increase across the board in the prices of the 5 big publishers.
I'm trying to say that ebook prices from publishers other than the 5 accused are irrelevant.
The fact is that the ebook average price from the accused publishers went up, it is irrelevant for that case that the total market average prices were down.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Another major reason is suggested in the earlier article -- Amazon's market power in the book retailing business (particularly if online book retailing is regarded as a distinct market) is so great that a lot of commenters have raised antitrust concerns about that power being applied as leverage for better terms in the e-book market (developing market power isn't illegal by itself, but applying it to use dominance in…
The publishers are completely free to sell DRM-free ebooks directly to consumers that can be enjoyed on their Kindle or whatever. They insist on relying on greedy middlemen like Apple and are shocked when Amazon doesn't fall in line. I have no sympathy for complaining publishers that refuse to actually circumvent these "bully" distributors.
They're also completely free to sell DRM-free paperbacks, and all of them do, but that's never helped them much when Amazon lists their paperbacks as "out of stock" as leverage tactics over physical book pricing because most people assume that if Amazon don't have it, it's out of print and there's no point looking elsewhere.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, it does seem like publishers want two contradictory things from Amazon: 1. Don't you dare discount our ebooks! 2. Don't you dare stop discounting our paper books! However, these positions are perfectly consistent. They're just consistent in a way that I suspect wouldn't occur to most HN readers. What publishers really want from Amazon is simple: "Reverse, stop, or at least slow down this damn ebook transition!"…
You are absolutely correct. They're like the entrenched interests at Kodak that tried to stop the development of digital cameras (which Kodak actually invented ) to support film sales. All they managed to do was ensure that the digital cameras were developed by companies other than Kodak, and now Kodak is bankrupt. The same thing is happening with ebooks. In many genres, 50% or more of the best-selling ebooks are eit…
I have to ask: In what way did Kodak try to stop digital cameras? They failed to remain relevant in digital photography, but I don't remember them trying to stop it.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#109Honest questions here... What is supposed to happen here? This article and each of the others linked don't offer much beyond jabs at Amazon. As far as I can tell, publishers are unhappy with Amazon - period. Two years ago the hot news was about Amazon pricing books too low [1]. Now at least part of the complaint is that Amazon isn't discounting enough and allowing prices to approach list price - which I assume is set…
eBooks are agency model - that is, the publisher sets the selling price, the retailer takes a cut like 30% on sale (like the appstore)
Physical books are wholesale model. The retailer sets the selling price, and the publisher always gets the negotiated wholesale price, usually around 50% of list.
So they are two different things. The publishers are mad at Amazon fro hating on agency pricing. Agency pricing takes away Amazon's ability to compete on price - that's why Amazon doesn't like it.
Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are absolutely correct. They're like the entrenched interests at Kodak that tried to stop the development of digital cameras (which Kodak actually invented ) to support film sales. All they managed to do was ensure that the digital cameras were developed by companies other than Kodak, and now Kodak is bankrupt. The same thing is happening with ebooks. In many genres, 50% or more of the best-selling ebooks are eit…
I have to ask: In what way did Kodak try to stop digital cameras? They failed to remain relevant in digital photography, but I don't remember them trying to stop it.
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