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It may be curation - but let’s not forget Amazon started with the premise that they could serve the long tail. Bezos used to talk about how terrible it was that
by jdsully 8y ago
It may be curation - but let’s not forget Amazon started with the premise that they could serve the long tail. Bezos used to talk about how terrible it was that a physical book store would have such limited selection.
They doubled down on this strategy with their on demand printing service - bypassing traditional publishing gate keepers.
When someone dispenses with long-standing policy it is noteworthy.
- fixermark 8y agoYou can support the long-tail without facilitating people harming themselves or their children with demonstrable misinformation. There's long tail and long tail. Amazon can still sell books about how to repair and maintain a 1936-era WLW Crosley Radio without also selling books informing the unfortunate gullible about how to "treat" their children's autism by DIY at-home electoconvulsion therapy.
- jdsully 8y agoSure - but they didn’t have editorial review before. This is a dramatic change of policy for them. Due to a long history - books in particular are seen as a bellweather of a societies attitudes towards censorship.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tzs 8y agoWhen Bezos talked about the limited selection of physical bookstores, I doubt that he was lamenting them not having enough garbage books available. I assume he was referring to there being way more good books than would fit in a physical bookstore.
- jdsully 8y agoThen why start a self publishing service for people who couldn’t get past the editors of even the trashiest publishers?
- notahacker 8y agoThere's a difference between being willing to help people writing stuff too awkward to market to earn them advances find their audience and helping people help other people to die...
- jbigelow76 8y agoBecause why have scale if you don't leverage it.