France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon • Hacker News Board

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#121

Post by wanderer2323 » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:46 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #79

WalterBright wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My meaning is a bit subtler than your interpretation. I was commenting on the practice of virtue signalling. For example, Seattle rebuilt and renamed the old Key Arena into Climate Pledge Arena. While I am a more ardent environmentalist than most (my virtue signalling duly noted) this name is a local pinnacle of vacuous virtue signalling nonsense.

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…

Fist someone presents their leftist point of view as truth on something called 'rational wiki', then someone posts it on HN with 'Just FYI'. I'm missing an 'explanatory reporting' by a 'neutral news outlet' for my culture war bullshit bingo.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#122

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:51 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #110

WalterBright wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My meaning is a bit subtler than your interpretation. I was commenting on the practice of virtue signalling. For example, Seattle rebuilt and renamed the old Key Arena into Climate Pledge Arena. While I am a more ardent environmentalist than most (my virtue signalling duly noted) this name is a local pinnacle of vacuous virtue signalling nonsense.

All names of professional sports stadiums are arbitrary and vacuous. It's not like there was some "real name" the building had that got surreptitiously erased or covered up by "virtue signalers."

> arbitrary and vacuous

Not really. It was called Key Arena before because Key Bank funded it. It was good advertising for them. The buildings on college campuses are also named after their donors. It acknowledges who paid for it.

Names can also just be for fun, like the Seattle Space Needle. The Emerald City is also the official nickname for Seattle.

Climate Pledge Arena is about as fun as "eat your broccoli, it's good for you."

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#123

Post by hypertele-Xii » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:54 PM UTC

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…

By local industry, you're actually talking about fragmented industry. It's only local to the locals, of whom there are far fewer than, well, literally everyone else.

Centralization is also densification, which has merits backed by scientific research. It's, in theory, better for everyone - well, for everyone else.

Doesn't it increase overall happiness?

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#124

Post by brigandish » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

baby wrote: post #111

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.

They’ll probably go the way of vinyl records, something more special than the regular stuff and for showing off or just for the extra pleasure of it. Ironically, closer to the way books and records were held before mass production.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#125

Post by amluto » Tue, Oct 26, 2021, 11:59 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #62

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is actually protecting the small book stores, right? Big stores like the Fnac could offer the same shipping prices as Amazon (and maybe they're already doing it). Publishers don't care much who is selling the book as long as it's selling. Obviously this only applies to physical books. Ebooks only account for about 15% of books sold in France unlike the US where it's close to 5…

I’m suspicious that Amazon sells fewer books than a good physical bookstore. In a bookstore, people find books they didn’t know they want, and I’ve never found anything interesting on Amazon. Similarly, Amazon does not produce the “whole I’m already here, I might as well buy something else” effect.

I’ve long thought that the publishers have has their whole business model wrong in quite a few ways.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#126

Post by coffeefirst » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 12:00 AM UTC

baby wrote: post #111

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.

I’ve changed my mind about this. ebooks should make more sense, but people just like paper. And why not? We spend so much time in screens it’s nice to have things that are physical.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#127

Post by xcambar » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 12:04 AM UTC

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…

That struck me as well.

Another option would have been to support local bookstores by subsidizing transportation, which would have allowed them to lower the price to the point of being competitive with Amazon.

But I guess that using public money to help local businesses is not as good as getting the customers to pay and help Amazon at the same time, in the eyes of Macron.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#128

Post by henrikschroder » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 12:04 AM UTC

wanderer2323 wrote: post #121

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…

Fist someone presents their leftist point of view as truth on something called 'rational wiki', then someone posts it on HN with 'Just FYI'. I'm missing an 'explanatory reporting' by a 'neutral news outlet' for my culture war bullshit bingo.

I think we need to slap a "dangerous misinformation" label on your post now!

/s, obviously.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#129

Post by makeitdouble » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #62

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this is actually protecting the small book stores, right? Big stores like the Fnac could offer the same shipping prices as Amazon (and maybe they're already doing it). Publishers don't care much who is selling the book as long as it's selling. Obviously this only applies to physical books. Ebooks only account for about 15% of books sold in France unlike the US where it's close to 5…

This is shielding everyone else really.

Amazon is using its money to basically price dump books, forcing competitors to the same path if they want to stand a chance. Having the other players also get into dumping is not a desirable outcome.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#130

Post by GekkePrutser » Wed, Oct 27, 2021, 12:08 AM UTC

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…

Amazon doesn't even order books anymore in many cases.

Most of their paperbacks are printed on demand. Kinda cool and pretty good for the environment IMO. Never a book being printed that's not needed. But smaller stores can't compete with that.