What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
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What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
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Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#2So does this mean that the major publishers have to re-disrupt Amazon's disruptive business model? That seems ironic.
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#3So does this mean that the major publishers have to re-disrupt Amazon's disruptive business model? That seems ironic.
They're still reacting. But they've finally woken up and smelled the smoke from their burning walled gardens, and they're trying to form a bucket chain.
The trouble seems to be that 19th/early 20th century anti-trust law, from the era of the coal and steel and oil monopolies, is a really bad fit for modern service industries. Not to mention moving too slowly. And taking aim in the wrong direction. (Such as the DoJ ignoring the $48Bn goliath with 85% market share and taking aim on the half-dozen $1-4Bn corporations trying not to get squashed by AMZN by sucking up to AAPL.)
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#4This 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.
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#5This 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.
I suspect if they tried such a gambit, AMZN could -- justifiably -- call for a DoJ investigation into unfair restraint of trade. (Or just ignore it altogether, insofar as AMZN has still got over 60% of the US ebook market.)
Besides, the whole point of DRM is to impede portability. What's got the publishers into this mess is being more concerned about piracy (and therefore opposing portability) than about empowering a hostile monopsony. The quickest way out of the quagmire is to open up.
We saw this before, with music in the iTunes Store: 2003, everything is DRM'd up the wazoo. 2010: suddenly Warner Music are happy for Apple to sell you un-encrypted downloads. Luckily for the music cos, Apple are primarily interested in selling hardware. Amazon's priorities are different, and much more dangerous ...
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#6I agree largely with this--especially about removing DRM. What complicates it for me is that it's very hard for me to have any sympathy for the publishers as they brought this upon themselves. They can't play victim as long as they keep DRM.
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#7But how is Amazon "disintermediating" anything? It's simply taking the place of a previous intermediary (bookshops).
The next step will be that authors will sell to readers directly; that will disintermediate both publishers and Amazon, and there's no reason it should not happen.
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#8But how is Amazon "disintermediating" anything? It's simply taking the place of a previous intermediary (bookshops). The next step will be that authors will sell to readers directly; that will disintermediate both publishers and Amazon, and there's no reason it should not happen.
Au contraire: the reason it won't happen is that most folks are not tech-savvy geeks. Most writers want to write, not deal with the minutiae of self-publishing (which is not the same thing at all), and most readers who buy ebooks aren't savvy enough about downloading files and shoving them onto a peripheral device. Oh, and reading books is already a marginal activity: anything that reduces the size of the market by even the 10% who are least tech-savvy is going to hit the producers in the wallet.
(It's easy to lose sight of, but the entire world does not consist of people similar to HN readers gearing up to launch a new startup. Not even close.)
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#9But how is Amazon "disintermediating" anything? It's simply taking the place of a previous intermediary (bookshops). The next step will be that authors will sell to readers directly; that will disintermediate both publishers and Amazon, and there's no reason it should not happen.
Au contraire: the reason it won't happen is that most folks are not tech-savvy geeks. Most writers want to write, not deal with the minutiae of self-publishing (which is not the same thing at all), and most readers who buy ebooks aren't savvy enough about downloading files and shoving them onto a peripheral device. Oh, and reading books is already a marginal activity: anything that reduces the size of the market by e…
That's a problem technology will solve. Maybe a startup will move into the space.
Re: What Amazon's ebook strategy really means
#10I agree largely with this--especially about removing DRM. What complicates it for me is that it's very hard for me to have any sympathy for the publishers as they brought this upon themselves. They can't play victim as long as they keep DRM.
And what's to keep Amazon from keeping the DRM even if the publishers don't require it?