Book-pricing Collusion

[rowyn]

Whoa.

 

The US Justice department is threatening suit against Apple and five major publishers, alleging collusion to raise book prices.

 

This is a fascinating situation to me. I do find it hard to see the whole agency-model thing as anything other than collusion to force Amazon to stop discounting e-books.  OTOH, it's not exactly clear that letting Amazon discount their way into the position of sole retail outlet for ebooks is the path to less monopoly power.

 

I don't know much about the law in this case, or what outcome I am rooting for.  But I'll be interested to see how it goes.

Comments

[telnar.livejournal.com]

When the abstract situation is ambiguous like this one, I root for the scenario which is better for today's consumers, which is clearly Amazon's preferred business model (where booksellers can discount freely). Markets evolve quickly. There's no guarantee that even if Amazon has an evil plan to gouge everyone after they crush the competition, that they will succeed. New competitors can arise Phoenix-like as technology changes so I'm willing to take my chances on Amazonian dominance. eBooks are still a small fraction of the total market for books. eBook distribution may be very different by the time paper is vanquished.