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No. I'm not sure there is anything Barnes and Noble could practically change that would gain them a significant amount of market share from Amazon. The network
by arrosenberg 6y ago
No. I'm not sure there is anything Barnes and Noble could practically change that would gain them a significant amount of market share from Amazon. The network effects of Kindle, Audible (the unlimited variants of both), and Prime delivery would make it impossible for B&N to really compete in the way a normal American would think about it.
The term monopoly power is colloquial doesn't require a market to only contain a single company. It's enough for a single dominant player to have market-setting power in either a region, nationally, or globally.
- slowmovintarget 6y agoOn Amazon, I have almost no way to guarantee I'm actually going to get the edition (print, that is) I intended to purchase. Barnes & Noble lets me buy the particular edition. Amazon lumps in rip-off photocopy books with the actual print editions and calls them all "hardcover" or "paperback" with different prices. You get an ISBN for some edition of the book, but not necessarily the one you have selected when you add it to your cart. I've taken to buying more print books from B&N for this reason. (War and Peace, Shogun, Moby-Dick... it's hard to find proper hard cover editions of these books, especially if there's a particular translation you're looking for, like in the case with Tolstoy.) I have this silly hope that the market will begin to swing away from Amazon as consumers attempt to avoid the rampant counterfeiting, and the lack of specificity and control for what you're actually buying. Time will tell.