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What Amazon's ebook strategy really means

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Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means

#71

Post by lmm »

danmaz74 wrote: post #4

This was a interesting read and the OP makes a good point. But couldn't the publishers just make a deal with e-book reader makers (which are struggling against Amazon too) and create a DRM "open" standard? By the way, I'm almost only buying ebooks from Amazon lately and, despite the convenience, this does make me pretty uneasy.

That's already happened - the Adobe DRM "standard", and readers like the Kobo. It's going nowhere, because the selection of ebooks is much smaller than Amazon's, so few people want to buy one of their readers, and you can't read those ebooks on the kindle, so no-one buys the books either. If they sold DRM-free ebooks then there might be a chance for other ebook stores to get established selling to kindle owners (though given how well integrated the kindle and its store are, I'm not sure), and then amazon might be forced to sell DRM-free ebooks too and at that point the market in readers could open up, and it'd be music all over again (where iTunes is still the 800lb gorilla, but no longer in a monopoly position). You'd think book publishers would learn from history...

Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means

#72

Post by danmaz74 »

lmm wrote: post #71
danmaz74 wrote: post #4

This was a interesting read and the OP makes a good point. But couldn't the publishers just make a deal with e-book reader makers (which are struggling against Amazon too) and create a DRM "open" standard? By the way, I'm almost only buying ebooks from Amazon lately and, despite the convenience, this does make me pretty uneasy.

That's already happened - the Adobe DRM "standard", and readers like the Kobo. It's going nowhere, because the selection of ebooks is much smaller than Amazon's, so few people want to buy one of their readers, and you can't read those ebooks on the kindle, so no-one buys the books either. If they sold DRM-free ebooks then there might be a chance for other ebook stores to get established selling to kindle owners (thou…

I'll be glad if the publishing industry chooses DRM-free as their standard. But that's unlikely. And if the standard will be pushed by the editors - or if they adopt Adobe's one - I guess there will be a lot of content...

Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means

#73

Post by tomkarlo »

sgentle wrote: post #55
tomkarlo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google and Valve, for example, are two companies that I like immensely, and I think they do a great job in their respective markets. Yet Google can arbitrarily cut off access to my email, and Valve can do the same with my games. Especially in terms of cloud email, isn't that going to be true of any service provider you choose? That has nothing to do with monopolies, it's just the nature of the beast. People you buy s…

Absolutely. Anyone you do business with can do anything not forbidden by the law. But competition is a great reason to avoid doing things that make your customers unhappy. If there was another cloud email provider that was as good as Gmail, but additionally had a reputation for never disabling accounts, I would switch to them. Gmail would lose my business, and I wouldn't have to worry about my account disappearing if…

Okay, but email is a highly competitive business. Competition doesn't mean you don't make customers unhappy, it just means you're judicious about how/when you do it. Any time you have to balance customer needs with abuse mitigation and legal compliance, you're going to have to do some things that make some customers unhappy in the name of being able to provide the wider service.

Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means

#74

Post by tomkarlo »

sgentle wrote: post #53
asr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, in your doomsday scenario, I get books for $5 and authors make more money? I'll take it. The crux of Stross's argument for why we should fear Amazon's low prices is that it's "predatory pricing"--that Amazon was selling e-books below cost so they could jack up the prices later after they had their monopoly (or, equivalently, lower payments to authors after they were a monopsonist). But apparently Stross didn't re…

Oh, I don't think Amazon is cheating. The whole point of disintermediation is to be more efficient and drive down prices. I'm certain prices will be lower under King Bezos, and perhaps payments to authors will stay high (though that's far less certain). It's important to consider that Amazon has always behaved quite consistently. Even when it had 90% of the ebook market, it was the one pushing to keep prices down. In…

So my issue isn't that Amazon is waiting patiently to pump up their prices once they have enough market share. It's more that having no competition is dangerous in itself.

(Sorry for second response to same message.)

It seems like your beef shouldn't be with Amazon. It should be with the rest of the industry for failing to compete. Otherwise it's like complaining that Apple is dominating the smartphone industry by delivering better products -- that's what they're supposed to do.

Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means

#75

Post by pavel_lishin »

brazzy wrote: post #64
bambax wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My nephew is 14 and has already published not one, but four books on the Kindle platform (one he wrote himself, the other three his grandfather wrote). The new generations of authors will be very tech-savvy, to a point that may sound incredible now but is very real. And even if some, or the majority, of authors don't want to do this themselves, why can't they hire a bunch of folks to do it for them? Why would they ha…

My nephew is 14 and has already published not one, but four books on the Kindle platform So your example for something that could replace Amazon... is Amazon? Amazon is doing at least two things really well that is going to be completely impractical for individual self-publishing authors to do on their own: Providing a go-to place for customers looking for books, and payment processing.

"Everyone generalizes from one example. At least, I do."
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