Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 301 posts

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#241

Post by 74d-fe6-2c6 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #144

A lot of comments don’t seem to get the context of this. Book prices are regulated in France [0] and you can’t just discount willy-nilly, in particular new book publications have selling prices set by the publisher. This proposition is coming on top of that: it will block sellers from artificially discounting books by subsidizing shipping cost. It is basically closing a loophole that still allowed Amazon to have lowe…

how about intentionally flawing the book by adding a line with a pen somewhere or similar. that's how I have it seen done in Germany to bypass price fixing.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#242

Post by kataklasm »

black_puppydog wrote: post #219
pier25 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The effect will be to force the same sticker price everywhere, as intended for years now. So in the end the seller with the best service will win.

I would welcome this. The French brick and mortar book stores are great and I love nothing more than spending hours at end walking through their aisles. They typically look small from the outside but then they are built like mazes, retrofitted into the building they happen to inhabit, branching out left and right, up and down.They specialise in topics, apparently by preference of the owners. Around my corner I have o…

That's how it is in my local store, no shipping costs if you pick it up at their's.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#243

Post by baud147258 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16

Not a big fan of Amazon but I also find it ridiculous and self-sacking to fixate on obsolete ideas. If you have to force a business to exist, maybe it doesn’t need to exist.

I wouldn't go as far as saying that in this case they're "forcing" business to exist, rather help existing (and often struggling) local business against bigger (mostly foreign) business who use economy of scales (or willingness to not take a profit for a few years in order to corner a market) to offer the same service cheaper

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#244

Post by ohgodplsno »

n8cpdx wrote: post #192
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…

> 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. Another way of phrasing that: France’s local book sellers are so bad at serving their customers that an American company that’s existed less than 30 years can totally undercut them, despite the local sellers’ massive advanta…

Curb your american pride.

Setting aside the fact that we've had two years of covid with months of curfew and lockdown that has absolutely murdered bookstores (but not Amazon), the real reason is simple: Amazon has a massive delivery network and allows for browsing online. Why do they? Because they have the money and the time to keep their stocks updated, and the scale to send out full trucks of packages to subsidise the delivery. Why don't small bookstores do ? Because they're single/dual employee places that do not have the time to keep a website updated, and cannot afford to send out a bike for delivery of a 10€ book.

This is not Amazon being "better". This is Amazon being naturally advantaged by being massive. There's no being rewarded by the market, simply being crushed by the billions of dollars of your competitor.

And if we're going to speak of laziness, Amazon is certainly a lazier company than any of the book stores I've been to.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#245

Post by baud147258 »

ineedasername wrote: post #85
Hokusai wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most centralization incrementally kills local industry And it makes the world more fragile and less diverse and interesting. Capitalism is founded on the idea of many producers competing for many customers. Amazon model steps as middleman so producers have only one buyer, and consumers have only one seller. That gives them a lot of power to control prices, and what is produced or consumed.

producers have only one buyer, and consumers have only one seller. Monopsony and monopoly all in one. For international HN'ers, a question: is the boardgame "Monopoly" popular in your country? Here in the US it's an old classic.

yes in France too

Though I don't think people playing it get the original idea being its design

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#246

Post by anaganisk »

Waterluvian wrote: post #16

Not a big fan of Amazon but I also find it ridiculous and self-sacking to fixate on obsolete ideas. If you have to force a business to exist, maybe it doesn’t need to exist.

Maybe that exact thinking paved ways for corrupt monopolies. There is a thin line between trying to force a business to exist vs forcing a huge conglomerate from extinguishing businesses with its money.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#247

Post by reissbaker »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #230
reissbaker wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do physical books not depend on copyright? The author still needs to get paid, and printing is fairly cheap.

Physical books are valuable. Some people just prefer them over ebooks. As physical items, making and distributing copies is non-trivial and costs money. Due to their scarce nature, it actually makes sense to sell them.

Right, but without copyright, anyone can copy and reprint any book that gets written, and the original author doesn't get paid.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#248

Post by sofixa »

74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #241
makeitdouble wrote: post #144

A lot of comments don’t seem to get the context of this. Book prices are regulated in France [0] and you can’t just discount willy-nilly, in particular new book publications have selling prices set by the publisher. This proposition is coming on top of that: it will block sellers from artificially discounting books by subsidizing shipping cost. It is basically closing a loophole that still allowed Amazon to have lowe…

how about intentionally flawing the book by adding a line with a pen somewhere or similar. that's how I have it seen done in Germany to bypass price fixing.

Even a damaged book can't be sold at a discount (only for newly sold).

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#249

Post by iggldiggl »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #230
reissbaker wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do physical books not depend on copyright? The author still needs to get paid, and printing is fairly cheap.

Physical books are valuable. Some people just prefer them over ebooks. As physical items, making and distributing copies is non-trivial and costs money. Due to their scarce nature, it actually makes sense to sell them.

Under a no-copyright model, people willing to pay for physical books isn't directly linked to publishers/printers still willing to pay the author, though.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#250

Post by brigandish »

coffeefirst wrote: post #126
baby wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, I like a mix. Stuff that is searchable is nice for non-fiction, especially tech stuff. Being able to change fonts and font size is nice too, but I agree, a smallish paper book is better to hold.
Post reply on HN