He compares it to standard oil. But Standard Oil drove down prices, and prices went up after they were broken up. They never abused their monopoly powers, in fact they were never a complete monopoly.
Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
161–170 of 208 posts
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Point of information: back before I got the opportunity to write novels for a living, it took me 3-4 years to write one on a part-time/hobbyist/learning-the-art basis. That's because I had a day job, which came first. As someone who is earning a living by writing, I typically produce a book a year, plus change (sometimes up to two books per year). If downward pressure on production costs results in me having to seek…
> It's commodification, equating work of serious artistic or literary merit, or work that lots of people like, with work that is neither artistic, meritorious, or even popular. Books have a high up front cost and low unit cost. This means that quadrupling sales is better than doubling prices and books "that lots of people like" will always be dramatically more successful than books that are "neither artistic, meritor…
The problem is, there doesn't seem to be much elasticity in the size of the market. Books are rivalrous goods: an hour spent reading book A is an hour you can't spend reading book B, or watching a movie. And a lot of people prefer to watch movies -- or play computer games, or kick a ball around -- to reading books for recreation. Unless we can work out how to convince more people that reading for pleasure is fun then we're in danger of disappearing into a zero-sum or negative-sum game: it's a gradually dwindling recreation, in the very long term, simply because of the increasing number of competing recreational activities. (NB: This is not a bad thing per se, it's only bad in the context of declining book consumption.)
Put it another way: posit that there is a constant number X readers out there who want to buy the next Charlie Stross novel. Is it a better strategy for me to pursue sales at a higher price point, or lower? Now posit that I might acquire more readers by lowering my price point ... but is it a linear relationship? Will I get my hypothetical profits back by deep discounting?
Answers on the back of a postcard, please. (Bearing in mind that actually doing the experiment is highly dangerous, because that's an entire year's income stream you're jeopardizing if you get it wrong.)
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've bought books from authors who set up their own web sites to sell their own ebooks.
I'm not sure I see the relevance. Lots of people do lots of different things. Some people juggle geese. Does you having bought books from authors who set up their own websites mean that bespoke websites are a viable alternative to Amazon for the majority of authors?
Of course they are viable. The ones I bought from were set up because the author didn't want to deal with Amazon.
It's never been easier for an author who wants to sell his own books to do so. It also isn't hard for like-minded authors to pool their resources and set up their own sales site.
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being the internet, it's easy for new competitors to start up, and existing competitors to expand. See oreilly.com, for example.
It's easy unless Amazon has signed people to exclusive contracts, such that your new startup can't get any of the authors people want to read.
Amazon doesn't require exclusive contracts.
> your new startup can't get any of the authors people want to read.
If Amazon is not serving the needs of those authors, they'll be interested in switching horses.
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
A part of me welcomes this. I am sick of the noise. Browsing the Amazon (Kindle) bookstore, I wish that 90% of the junk didn't even appear in my search results. Rather read works by people who are creating for the sake of art, and not money. This does not mean that I believe authors should not be correctly compensated, but has more to do with the impetus for action itself and the resulting quality of work that is pro…
And I'm sure the 90% that vanishes will be the 90% you want gone. What I'm curious about is why you think Amazon's actions will drive away those creating crap for the sake of money. When I look through the Kindle Store the thing that always strikes me is how many knocked together short books written by people with no great expertise there are. To me that's the main current impact of Amazon's democratization of publis…
the downward pressure on prices will dissuade people who are writing with remuneration as a primary driving source of output.
that said, that doesn't solve the problem of discovery, although it does alleviate it a bit.
that's the logic, feel free to educate me :)
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazon wants to push prices down for the sake of their own bottom line. What happens when what's good for their bottom line becomes even more divergent from that of the authors working with them? In a monopsony, where do they go ? That's the problem under examination here.
> where do they go? To Amazons various competitors: Google Play Books, iBooks, Barnes and Noble...
Which are all very small relative to the size of the Amazon market. You can't practically compete and not sell through Amazon, hence the problem with a monopsony.
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's commodification, equating work of serious artistic or literary merit, or work that lots of people like, with work that is neither artistic, meritorious, or even popular. Books have a high up front cost and low unit cost. This means that quadrupling sales is better than doubling prices and books "that lots of people like" will always be dramatically more successful than books that are "neither artistic, meritor…
The problem is, there doesn't seem to be much elasticity in the size of the market. Books are rivalrous goods: an hour spent reading book A is an hour you can't spend reading book B, or watching a movie. And a lot of people prefer to watch movies -- or play computer games, or kick a ball around -- to reading books for recreation. Unless we can work out how to convince more people that reading for pleasure is fun then…
Its an error to assume folks actually READ the books they buy. I have a tall stack of books I'll get around to reading. I paid for them all of course.
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
> dissuading authors from writing by suppressing their earnings. I take it you do not know what the median author makes from writing a book. Lets just say if an author was also a rational economic agent they would flip burgers rather than write books.
To paraphrase one of my favorite fictional characters: "It's not enough to just live. You have to have something to live for." And flipping burgers ain't it. The same people who come up with ideas like "rational economic agent" either have their bills taken care of or are surrounded by other people who think that stuff up, too. Individuals are sometimes rational, but a lot of people have to consider quality of life,…
I think you're missing the point, I wasn't talking about whether one should or shouldn't be a rational economic agent.
Rather that an argument advanced based on rational economic thinking is invalid when talking about writers in the general sense as they do not produce their work based on the expectation of a reasonable profit.
If Amazon keeps playing hardball with Hachette, they will drive down writers profits, but writers will keep writing books because they don't care about profit. eg. There will be no reduction in the supply of books.
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I see the relevance. Lots of people do lots of different things. Some people juggle geese. Does you having bought books from authors who set up their own websites mean that bespoke websites are a viable alternative to Amazon for the majority of authors?
Of course they are viable. The ones I bought from were set up because the author didn't want to deal with Amazon. It's never been easier for an author who wants to sell his own books to do so. It also isn't hard for like-minded authors to pool their resources and set up their own sales site.
Maybe this is true, but I hope you'll forgive me if I do not take your totally unsubstantiated word for it. Is there actually a good reason I should believe this is viable? Because I have seen no evidence of that whatsoever and a lot of evidence to the contrary (chiefly, the paucity of authors succeeding using this supposedly viable option when compared to other avenues).
Re: Amazon’s Monopsony Is Not O.K.
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's easy unless Amazon has signed people to exclusive contracts, such that your new startup can't get any of the authors people want to read.
Which they haven't done and have shown no inclination to do.
Because the don't have the necessary power yet! In order to require exclusive contracts they would need to be the only viable option for writers which would happen if they squeezed out publishers, became a publisher, and only distributed through Amazon. It's unlikely this would happen but when you gradually give someone more and more power the risk of abuse gets higher.