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

261–270 of 301 posts

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#261

Post by flexie »

wyoh wrote: post #251
flexie wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Jeff Bezos loses. Everyone else wins. Yes, the consumer pays more for a book but he also lives in an economy with better paid jobs, free healthcare, free education, and more competing bookstores. Amazon's low costs is only possible because they externalize their costs to society.

There is no such thing as free health care or free education. You pay it through heavy taxation where France is the champion.

European healthcare and education is great, far cheaper than American, and it is indeed free for many of the patients and students.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#262

Post by wibagusto »

mitigating wrote: post #211
claaams wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting fake or low quality garbage from Amazon has made me stop using their product most entirely. I have 0 faith in it and I will gladly pay the inconvenience of driving or 5-10% more for a retail store brand.

There's some percentage of people that always want to pay the lowest price and if the product turns out to be fake they return it. Say you order 100 things over a month and 5% turn out to be fake the only cost is time (Amazon pays for shipping if the product is fake I believe). That's compared to paying 10% more on every product plus the time it takes to go to the store.

Honestly if I can’t trust that a company is delivering a real product or not I’m OUT. That’s a violation of trust. And it’s happened to me multiple times on Amazon—nowhere else.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#263

Post by coldtea »

smabie wrote: post #157
coldtea wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather not have them race to the bottom to "remain competitive". I also rather not have the book industry of a country dependent on the whims (and VC/bottomless pit of money to stay "competitive" while they crush a market) of an American company. Even more so one with no culture and no respect for the book as a work of the spirit whatsoever. So there's that.

I guess I would rather have cheaper books/things, don't really care whether a book seller has respect for a book as a "work of spirit" whatever that means.

Well, I, on the other hand, am European, so I care about more than getting my books/things cheap.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#264

Post by [deleted] »

jareklupinski wrote: post #200
makeitdouble wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just removes the price out of the equation. There will be any number of other factors pushing a customer to choose a store or another. On a personal level, delivery network was a big one, and Amazon wasn't the best on this as you can't choose in most cases (delivery guys randomly calling on my phone because they got lost in another town...). But everyone will have their pet peeve, some people will just chose on ho…

> It just removes the price out of the equation. I too welcome our post-scarcity future :)

[deleted]

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#265

Post by csee »

flexie wrote: post #260
csee wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Amazon's low costs are because of scale economies and physical network effects. Exxon's low costs are because they externalize the costs to society. Let's be accurate. They may have some externalities but it's not a big part of their business. Also price fixing the books doesn't imply better paid anything, there's no large causal connection there. Overall this is a win for pirates, inefficient booksellers and Ama…

When you pay workers less than what they need to survive, you externalize the wage to society. When you use temps in stead of real employees, you externalize their healthcare etc. as well. When you sell books in Europe, but you don't pay taxes like European bookstores, you externalize that as well. When you use predatory pricing for more than a decade, and it kills off real bookstores, that's an externality as well.…

> but you don't pay taxes like European bookstores

If true, this isn't Amazon's fault, and it's not an externality either. If there's a loophole in the tax law, the onus is on the EU or France to fix it, the onus isn't on Amazon to voluntarily give extra money above and beyond what's required. No business ever does this. Moreover, price fixing books doesn't fix the tax loophole.

> large CO2 footprint.

That's why I said "They may have some externalities", similar in extent to many other businesses that operate in the physical world. Per-shipped item, Amazon probably has the least amount of externalities compared to other bookstores thanks to operational efficiency, so on the carbon externality point they should be celebrated (on a relative basis). Also, this is an argument for a carbon price, not an argument for price fixing of books.

> externalize the wage // externalize their healthcare

These aren't externalities. Amazon pays enough money for them to live. If the public votes to give them extra handouts then that isn't Amazon's fault. You would also need to make the argument that low-skilled labor on aggregate would be earning more money if Amazon wasn't around, which is a claim I strongly dispute. Part of the improvement in operational efficiency is passed on as superior wages relative to other low-skilled labor.

> It's just low wages, predatory pricing, tax avoidance and disregard for the environment.

Strong disagree. It is high wages (relative to market rates for that skill tier), competitive pricing, tax compliance, less pollution on a per-item basis, PLUS extreme operational efficiency and economies of scale/physical network effects (the latter in this list being the most dominant explanatory variable).

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#266

Post by jollybean »

jwond wrote: post #120
jollybean wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know you don't mean to imply this ... but this is a bit condescending.

Walmart probably more than anything else has uplifted the lives of the bottom 1/3 and given them to live at the material standard of living rivalling the middle class.

The truth is - most things we use, we don't need very high quality.

Your plates, knives, glasses? They'll outlast you.

Your clothes will as well, unless you're using them for labour, in which case people know quality matters.

The basketball you buy is not going to get worn out any time soon.

But the ability to be cookery, deck chairs, plastic anything, video games, music, sporting good, bedding etc. is basically transformational.

I do think there are quality issues (and cultural) here and there but for most part it's a pretty big win.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#267

Post by csee »

unity1001 wrote: post #255
csee wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Amazon's low costs are because of scale economies and physical network effects. Exxon's low costs are because they externalize the costs to society. Let's be accurate. They may have some externalities but it's not a big part of their business. Also price fixing the books doesn't imply better paid anything, there's no large causal connection there. Overall this is a win for pirates, inefficient booksellers and Ama…

Amazon also pays its workers dimes and lets the social programs make up for it - like how workers in US use foodstamps etc. There is more than one way to dump the cost onto the society.

For this argument to make sense, you would first have to show that in the absence of Amazon, low-skilled labor on aggregate (including the people currently working there) would be making more than they currently are making. If it turns out that they would be making less, then it's not a coherent argument because it means that Amazon's presence has caused welfare costs to go down.

An example. Suppose someone is working at the best job they could find for $8/hour, and I decide to hire them for $15/hour. Am I "dumping the cost onto society"? Maybe you could frame it that way, but in reality my contribution has been to reduce the burden on society by $7/hour.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#268

Post by missedthecue »

unity1001 wrote: post #255
csee wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Amazon's low costs are because of scale economies and physical network effects. Exxon's low costs are because they externalize the costs to society. Let's be accurate. They may have some externalities but it's not a big part of their business. Also price fixing the books doesn't imply better paid anything, there's no large causal connection there. Overall this is a win for pirates, inefficient booksellers and Ama…

Amazon also pays its workers dimes and lets the social programs make up for it - like how workers in US use foodstamps etc. There is more than one way to dump the cost onto the society.

It's not actually possible to work at Amazon and qualify for food stamps, unless you are a single parent with multiple children. Amazon simply pays too much.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#269

Post by missedthecue »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #83
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.

There’s a wide gap between “forcing a business to exist” and 100% unfettered capitalism. My preference is to be somewhere along that spectrum, not at either end.

Fettered capitalism seems to just be whoever is closest to government getting special protection from competitors offering better prices and services. In this case, French book stores.

Unless you own a French book store, the fettering of capitalism is making you poorer.

Re: France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon

#270

Post by mdp2021 »

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…

> The French brick and mortar book stores are great

> I'm from Germany and there we've had

Well, drop by at happily coincidentally current https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28976112 and drop note of some places, then. In a possible path: is the Waterstone in Bruxelles good as they say?

Post reply on HN