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France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

reuters.com

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Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#111

Post by baby »

throwaway789257 wrote: post #50

France has a long history of attempting to protect its cultural industries, including film and publishing. It's not wrong. There are other things that are important aside from customer purchasing power. Amazon is using its economies of scale to drive out smaller businesses. It is not unique in that. But the industries that Amazon affects may be unique to the nations that wish to preserve them. Most centralization inc…

I think technology is going to sunset paper books, so this is just delaying the inevitable.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#112

Post by ineedasername »

So, basically Amazon is in a win-win situation. If the status quo prevails, they're happy. If they have to start charging for shipping, maybe some customers go to a local bookstore but Amazon also has a legal mandate to make more profit in their book sales by not subsidizing shipping out of the wholesale margin. And while some people will buy local a bit more, Amazon sells so many things and the local store may still have to order your book and get it to you slower than Amazon, keeping Amazon as the most convenient option... I don't see a long-term downside for Amazon here.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#114

Post by tshaddox »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #95
bduerst wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just FYI, Virtue Signalling is a pejorative that implicitly marginalizes and accuses someone of abnormal behavior. The GP here is calling that out even if you didn't specifically use the term "virtue signalling" in your original comment - the behavior here is entirely normal. The phrase's roots come from the alt-right looking for a replacement for SJW accusations not being taken seriously: https://rationalwiki.org/wi…

I don't think there is anything implicit in this phrase anymore -- it quite explicitly accuses someone of posturing instead of paying the honest price for signaling. For example, a peacock's tail is a honest fitness signal -- it does take a lot of effort to maintain (in food and vulnerability) so it serves as a good signal for fitness. Naming an existing place after a virtue you want to pretend to hold is an empty vi…

> it quite explicitly accuses someone of posturing instead of paying the honest price for signaling.

Not really. I see the accusation used almost exclusively to refer to any time someone deliberately associates themselves publicly with any view that is opposed by the viewer. It's literally just a meaningless accusation thrown at someone who disagrees with you about something.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#115

Post by waynesonfire »

ineedasername wrote: post #112

So, basically Amazon is in a win-win situation. If the status quo prevails, they're happy. If they have to start charging for shipping, maybe some customers go to a local bookstore but Amazon also has a legal mandate to make more profit in their book sales by not subsidizing shipping out of the wholesale margin. And while some people will buy local a bit more, Amazon sells so many things and the local store may still…

Oh good one. I guess at the end thats what these comapnies want. If they cant get market share through prices they'll do it in other ways as long as there is a level playing field.

Similar to what fb is dealing with. They would welcome any legislation to hamper social media competition since they could then stop buying up potential threats.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#116

Post by caslon »

tshaddox wrote: post #104
caslon wrote: post #3

Is there a word for laws that disproportionately affect people in rural areas so that a government can play protectionist for urban companies? I hate Amazon as much as anyone, but in this case they're definitely not wrong , even if they're probably lying about their reasoning.

I don't know if there's a word for that, but it certainly seems like it would be exceedingly rare. Don't people in rural areas have vastly disproportionately large representation in government, public spending per capita, etc.? Of course, I'm just basing this on my intuition in the United States. My intuition could be way off, or France could be quite different.

People in rural areas have disproportionately large representation in government, but this doesn't mean their representation actually represents them. By and large rural politicians go against the will of their voter bases and over the past fifty years have contributed to the decline of important things like rural schooling, sort of cementing the "bad representation" problem.

Rural voters are actually far more progressive than many people might think (over half of them are in favor of M4A, if we take polls of rural states at face value), but they vote based on the party line rather than who actually represents their interests. This is partially because of the destruction of education in rural states.

The same is true for citizens all over the country. Dianne Feinstein repeatedly kept flying a confederate flag over SF's city hall during the 80s, for example, but she's never lost a race; tell me that represents the will of the people: https://www.newspapers.com/image/460776332/

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#117

Post by WalterBright »

anamax wrote: post #103
tpush wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably there are more "Trump is bad" (weird simplification, but ok) books than ones on Biden because a) Trump has been president longer and b) Trump's actions harmed more people.

How about "more people want to buy a 'Trump is bad' book than a 'Biden is bad' book?" People buy, or don't buy, books for all sorts of reasons. (For example, some people show off their books.)

> some people show off their books

Aka the ubiquitous bookshelf behind the person in their zoom calls, stocked with carefully selected book titles.

Though it's tough to beat von Braun's bookshelf:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrdanbeaumont/20033929484

I bet he'd even read them. Love the hole in the ceiling.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#118

Post by treeman79 »

jollybean wrote: post #98
throwaway789257 wrote: post #50

France has a long history of attempting to protect its cultural industries, including film and publishing. It's not wrong. There are other things that are important aside from customer purchasing power. Amazon is using its economies of scale to drive out smaller businesses. It is not unique in that. But the industries that Amazon affects may be unique to the nations that wish to preserve them. Most centralization inc…

Some things are worth preserving, some are not. Walmart has increased the standard of living of the lower class quit considerably. In the 1980's everything was kind of expensive. From 1990-2010 with the rise of real globalisation it was just unbelievable what could be had for a a few dollars. I think most people would notice it if Walmart were to suddenly disappear. That said, anything cultural is probably worth pres…

For quality issue. Remember Back to the Future when they had a disagreement over junk/best stuff from Japan. A difference 30 years can make.

Japan produced crap. They got better.

China is in the same boat now.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#119

Post by timeon »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #82
Shadonototra wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more than just a "business" The reason of the downfall of our civilization is because of that specific problem, you think about everything as a business, including countries

It doesn't seem like much of a downfall when you look back at history.

Depends on perspective. https://xkcd.com/1732/

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#120

Post by jwond »

jollybean wrote: post #98
throwaway789257 wrote: post #50

France has a long history of attempting to protect its cultural industries, including film and publishing. It's not wrong. There are other things that are important aside from customer purchasing power. Amazon is using its economies of scale to drive out smaller businesses. It is not unique in that. But the industries that Amazon affects may be unique to the nations that wish to preserve them. Most centralization inc…

Some things are worth preserving, some are not. Walmart has increased the standard of living of the lower class quit considerably. In the 1980's everything was kind of expensive. From 1990-2010 with the rise of real globalisation it was just unbelievable what could be had for a a few dollars. I think most people would notice it if Walmart were to suddenly disappear. That said, anything cultural is probably worth pres…

> In the 1980's everything was kind of expensive. From 1990-2010 with the rise of real globalisation it was just unbelievable what could be had for a a few dollars.

I don’t see this as necessarily a good thing. People buying a bunch of low quality products that are designed to be as cheap as possible and then just tossing them in the trash when they inevitably break is terrible for the environment.

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