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Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

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Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#21

Post by AnthonyMouse »

jerf wrote: post #3
btrombley wrote: post #2

The article is short on details, but I'm not clear why Amazon is obligated to sell a publisher's books, much less at the publisher's desired prices. Wal-mart is famous for using its size to lean on suppliers ensuring "everyday low prices." Why is publishing different? I sympathize with authors that are hurt by this battle, but it just shows that Amazon's marketplace is becoming more important to their sales than thei…

If Amazon can significantly hurt a publisher in this manner, it is suggestive that they may have a monopoly power that they are abusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law (General note: Please at least somewhat carefully read over that before arguing. First, I'm only saying that it's suggestive, not proof, and secondly, there's a lot of misconceptions about what exactly is forbidden w.r.t. monopolies.)

The thing is, they don't. Amazon is like Walmart or Google. The reason everyone uses them isn't that there are no other options. There are. The reason is that they're better at it. A monopoly is, for example, Comcast, because there is no reasonable alternative provider for the same service.

Talking about "hurt a publisher" is broadening the scope too far of what a monopoly is. A large retailer taking your products off of its shelves will hurt you in the sense that you'll make fewer sales, but that doesn't mean they have monopoly power. All it means is they have non-zero negotiating leverage with you. If you don't like it, go sell your books on Barnes and Noble or eBay or direct to customers on your own website.

Think for a moment about why we hear all this wailing about Amazon in the book market but not in the market for e.g. AWS, even though Amazon has a large market share there as well. It's because in the book market the publishers are also Amazon's competitors and they're the ones wailing. Because Amazon wants everybody to buy eBooks, the vibrant success of which gives authors significant leverage over publishers once it becomes viable to forgo a print edition entirely unless publishers provide sufficiently attractive terms.

That puts the squeeze on print publishers from both ends. Amazon is demanding lower prices from them and authors are given leverage to demand higher royalties. That's the natural state of the market when your product requires you to operate an industrial scale printing facility and have a significant unit reproduction cost for your product and competitors are providing similar customer value by copying bits. The print publishers are screwed and they're trying to figure out how not to be, but they're already dead and they just haven't hit the ground yet.

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#22

Post by mcguire »

bd_at_rivenhill wrote: post #13
Spooky23 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this reveals Amazon's key weakness -- they don't make any money. Amazon's big cachet was always "Earth's biggest selection". If they are going to behave like cable companies and refuse to sell books from major customers, they are really failing their customers. If I want to buy a book, I shouldn't need to know or care about who publishes it, and whether or not they are in a pissing match with Amazon. The firs…

They make plenty of money, but that is then invested back into expanding the business, so it's more accurate to say that they don't make much profit at this time.

I haven't looked at Amazon's numbers, so I don't know the actual values involved, but "profit" includes money that is then "invested back into expanding the business".

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#23

Post by revelation »

These 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?

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#24

Post by paulgb »

> The paperback edition of Brad Stone’s “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” — a book Amazon disliked so much it denounced it — is suddenly listed as “unavailable.”

I like a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy but couldn't the book just be... unavailable? If they wanted to impede its distribution why are they still selling the Kindle, Hardcover, and Audio versions?

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#25

Post by jerf »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #21
jerf wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amazon can significantly hurt a publisher in this manner, it is suggestive that they may have a monopoly power that they are abusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law (General note: Please at least somewhat carefully read over that before arguing. First, I'm only saying that it's suggestive, not proof, and secondly, there's a lot of misconceptions about what exactly is forbidden w.r.t. monopolies.)

The thing is, they don't. Amazon is like Walmart or Google. The reason everyone uses them isn't that there are no other options. There are. The reason is that they're better at it. A monopoly is, for example, Comcast, because there is no reasonable alternative provider for the same service. Talking about "hurt a publisher" is broadening the scope too far of what a monopoly is. A large retailer taking your products of…

See, this is why I really strongly suggested that you read the link I provided. Monopolies are not, strictly speaking, about "not having any other options". I phrased my point carefully... the fact that Amazon can incur great pain on someone like this, combined with the fact that they have, strongly suggests something that may be actionable under monopoly law, regardless of what other definitions may or may not also be something you could choose to apply, but I did not.

If customers in practice had easy and significant choices, they'd just go elsewhere easily and the publisher would feel no pain.

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#27

Post by tzs »

revelation wrote: post #23

These 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?

> Theres not a single Amazon statement in this article

From the article: "An Amazon spokesman declined to comment"

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#28

Post by cafard »

btrombley wrote: post #16
jerf wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Amazon can significantly hurt a publisher in this manner, it is suggestive that they may have a monopoly power that they are abusing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Law (General note: Please at least somewhat carefully read over that before arguing. First, I'm only saying that it's suggestive, not proof, and secondly, there's a lot of misconceptions about what exactly is forbidden w.r.t. monopolies.)

I think this is backwards: it was the book publishers (and Apple) that were sued for colluding to raise e-Book prices and had to settle -- which is what anti-trust laws are meant to protect consumers against. Amazon using its size and some questionable tactics just doesn't fall into that category. The book publishers have done a great job painting this as a David vs. Goliath story, but it's really two Goliaths battli…

Amazon doesn't just beat up on the big boys.

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#29

Post by smackfu »

tsunamifury wrote: post #15
smackfu wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably e-book pricing. Hachette doesn't really have any reason to come out publicly and says they are trying to keep e-book prices high, since while that is good for authors and Hachette, it's bad for the consumer pocketbook.

Can we stop with the mindless idea that the point of capitalism is only to drive down the price for consumers. The point is to provide an equilibrium between suppliers and customers. The difference between 12.99 and 9.99 doesn't hurt consumers and provides significant difference in paying authors. Amazon is unfairly trying to kill the suppliers for short term gains at the expense of the industry.

Yeah, my point is that nuance gets lost if they go public with the terms of the dispute. "Amazon fighting to keep e-book prices down" is not the headline Hachette wants to see. In fact, Hachette is probably quite happy with the headline they got, "Amazon Escalates Its Battle Against Publishers."

Re: Amazon Flexes Its Muscles in Fight Against Publishers

#30

Post by dragonwriter »

smackfu wrote: post #12

The main reason this is getting publicity is that the authors are getting punished but they have no power. Otherwise it's just a standard retailer/supplier conflict. Also, note that Hachette is one of the publishers involved in the e-book suit who settled, so not exactly a great history with Amazon.

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 one market to acheive dominance in another can be an antitrust violation.)
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