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> nothing is stopping you from navigating to booksamillion.com or powells.com to buy a book. But most readers won't. So unless you're lucky enough to have a ma

by MikeUt 6y ago

> nothing is stopping you from navigating to booksamillion.com or powells.com to buy a book. But most readers won't. So unless you're lucky enough to have a massive "I'll buy this book no matter what" audience that already know about your book (which I'd wager 99% or more authors don't have), then Amazon can single-handedly kill your viability as an author, regardless if your books can still be found by those really invested. How many books are silently snuffed out for each big outcry?

lotsofpulp 6y ago
No one owes anyone an audience. It was much harder for an author to get an audience before Amazon came around, and the internet has only lowered the barriers to entry for authors. Just because a large portion of people choose to not patronize non Amazon website does not mean there is a problem of Amazon curating its inventory. I choose to shop at Costco, and let them do some filtering for the products I buy. It’s the same thing with Amazon. If Amazon “snuffs” you out, then go advertise and do what you have to do raise awareness of your product.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The concern is about having an unhappy medium, where people think Amazon has “all the books”, but the company is silently putting their thumb on the scales. If you went to anyone outside the context of the current discussion, and told them that Amazon’s selection is curated to remove books Amazon doesn’t think you ought to read, I don’t think they’d believe you.
  - claudiawerner 6y ago
    That is an unhappy medium, but consider what people already do; I'm interested in philosophy and electronic engineering. I know that for any given book on those topics I want to read, Amazon is more likely than not to just not have them, or only have them with a ridiculous price for second-hand. I don't know if it's the same for fiction readers, but I'd wager that a good proportion of the books fiction readers want to buy (books which they discover by other forms of advertising, Goodreads, word of mouth, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) are not on Amazon either. If what I suppose is true, then the only people impacted are those who find books to read only by browsing Amazon - that is, they use Amazon to discover, not to seek.
- MikeUt 6y ago
  > the internet has only lowered the barriers to entry for authors. It has lowered the barrier to get published, but not the barrier to reach a significant audience. > Just because a large portion of people choose to not patronize non Amazon website does not mean there is a problem of Amazon curating its inventory. Yes, it does. Now a single company acting as a hidden censor gets to decide which books and ideas can reach a significant audience, and which get effectively ignored. That's the great advancement in censorship - things aren't censored totally, just silently suppressed into irrelevance. Just because "no one owes anyone an audience" doesn't make this less of a problem. Perhaps if you were on the other side of the issue, you'd see the problem with Costco as well. You have a product to sell, but instead of hundreds of retailers to negotiate with to get your item on store shelves, and needing only a handful for your company to survive (and hence allowing your product to exist), there are 3-5. If they all say no, effectively no-one will get to use your product. You may still think it's fine, since they (as far as we know) probably filter mostly on price and quality. But what if they filtered on ideological grounds? What if none of them allowed you to sell contraceptives, or immodest clothing, or DRM-free electronics? Is it still not a problem, or is it merely less of a problem than the "men with guns force you to put an item on your shelves" solution you're implicitly comparing it with?
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > It has lowered the barrier to get published, but not the barrier to reach a significant audience. How much less of a barrier is needed more than being able to type a few letters on a device in your pocket? An individual can make the pdf, share a Dropbox link, and there’s instant access to nearly 8 billion people. > You may still think it's fine, since they (as far as we know) probably filter mostly on price and quality. But what if they filtered on ideological grounds? What if none of them allowed you to sell contraceptives, or immodest clothing, or DRM-free electronics? Yes, a <insert religion> goods store filters based on ideological grounds and that is their right. > Is it still not a problem, or is it merely less of a problem than the "men with guns force you to put an item on your shelves" solution you're implicitly comparing it with? I don’t know what this means, but I was simply saying if you wanted to write some text, and get it in front of people, it has never been easier than today to make it accessible to the entire population of the world. The competition is tough, people have a lot of options for where they can choose to spend their time, so there is no guarantee of your thoughts being read. But that has nothing to do with Amazon, nor does Amazon restrict anyone’s ability to reach anyone else. Even in the case of physical products, whether it be printing a book, or inventing a device, you can make the product, make a website, and promote it to the entire world as a one man show, and ship it via the various shipping companies.
- tjs8rj 6y ago
  The problem is bigger than consensual exchange. Amazon doesn’t owe you an audience, yes, but we do prefer to live in a culture that doesn’t remove access to an audience based on a disagreement with the content. If google blocked all search terms leading to republican or conservative content, that would be an issue. Not because google owes them search engine traffic, but because its broadly accepted to be morally wrong to deny equal access based on a disagreement in content. Allowing the same is the definition of paving the road to hell with good intentions, where good intentions is letting private companies erode society with their immense influence just because they are entitled to each step along the way.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > yes, but we do prefer to live in a culture that doesn’t remove access to an audience based on a disagreement with the content. That’s not the US I grew up in. The government has blocked access to content via public airwaves, different stores “block” access to various products, movie theaters “block” access to movies with certain ratings, etc. I don’t expect a religious publisher to start publishing literature it thinks is harmful, but I wouldn’t say it’s “blocking” anyone.

by MikeUt 6y ago

lotsofpulp 6y ago

No one owes anyone an audience. It was much harder for an author to get an audience before Amazon came around, and the internet has only lowered the barriers to entry for authors. Just because a large portion of people choose to not patronize non Amazon website does not mean there is a problem of Amazon curating its inventory. I choose to shop at Costco, and let them do some filtering for the products I buy. It’s the same thing with Amazon. If Amazon “snuffs” you out, then go advertise and do what you have to do raise awareness of your product.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The concern is about having an unhappy medium, where people think Amazon has “all the books”, but the company is silently putting their thumb on the scales. If you went to anyone outside the context of the current discussion, and told them that Amazon’s selection is curated to remove books Amazon doesn’t think you ought to read, I don’t think they’d believe you.
- claudiawerner 6y ago
  That is an unhappy medium, but consider what people already do; I'm interested in philosophy and electronic engineering. I know that for any given book on those topics I want to read, Amazon is more likely than not to just not have them, or only have them with a ridiculous price for second-hand. I don't know if it's the same for fiction readers, but I'd wager that a good proportion of the books fiction readers want to buy (books which they discover by other forms of advertising, Goodreads, word of mouth, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) are not on Amazon either. If what I suppose is true, then the only people impacted are those who find books to read only by browsing Amazon - that is, they use Amazon to discover, not to seek.
MikeUt 6y ago
> the internet has only lowered the barriers to entry for authors. It has lowered the barrier to get published, but not the barrier to reach a significant audience. > Just because a large portion of people choose to not patronize non Amazon website does not mean there is a problem of Amazon curating its inventory. Yes, it does. Now a single company acting as a hidden censor gets to decide which books and ideas can reach a significant audience, and which get effectively ignored. That's the great advancement in censorship - things aren't censored totally, just silently suppressed into irrelevance. Just because "no one owes anyone an audience" doesn't make this less of a problem. Perhaps if you were on the other side of the issue, you'd see the problem with Costco as well. You have a product to sell, but instead of hundreds of retailers to negotiate with to get your item on store shelves, and needing only a handful for your company to survive (and hence allowing your product to exist), there are 3-5. If they all say no, effectively no-one will get to use your product. You may still think it's fine, since they (as far as we know) probably filter mostly on price and quality. But what if they filtered on ideological grounds? What if none of them allowed you to sell contraceptives, or immodest clothing, or DRM-free electronics? Is it still not a problem, or is it merely less of a problem than the "men with guns force you to put an item on your shelves" solution you're implicitly comparing it with?
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > It has lowered the barrier to get published, but not the barrier to reach a significant audience. How much less of a barrier is needed more than being able to type a few letters on a device in your pocket? An individual can make the pdf, share a Dropbox link, and there’s instant access to nearly 8 billion people. > You may still think it's fine, since they (as far as we know) probably filter mostly on price and quality. But what if they filtered on ideological grounds? What if none of them allowed you to sell contraceptives, or immodest clothing, or DRM-free electronics? Yes, a <insert religion> goods store filters based on ideological grounds and that is their right. > Is it still not a problem, or is it merely less of a problem than the "men with guns force you to put an item on your shelves" solution you're implicitly comparing it with? I don’t know what this means, but I was simply saying if you wanted to write some text, and get it in front of people, it has never been easier than today to make it accessible to the entire population of the world. The competition is tough, people have a lot of options for where they can choose to spend their time, so there is no guarantee of your thoughts being read. But that has nothing to do with Amazon, nor does Amazon restrict anyone’s ability to reach anyone else. Even in the case of physical products, whether it be printing a book, or inventing a device, you can make the product, make a website, and promote it to the entire world as a one man show, and ship it via the various shipping companies.
tjs8rj 6y ago
The problem is bigger than consensual exchange. Amazon doesn’t owe you an audience, yes, but we do prefer to live in a culture that doesn’t remove access to an audience based on a disagreement with the content. If google blocked all search terms leading to republican or conservative content, that would be an issue. Not because google owes them search engine traffic, but because its broadly accepted to be morally wrong to deny equal access based on a disagreement in content. Allowing the same is the definition of paving the road to hell with good intentions, where good intentions is letting private companies erode society with their immense influence just because they are entitled to each step along the way.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > yes, but we do prefer to live in a culture that doesn’t remove access to an audience based on a disagreement with the content. That’s not the US I grew up in. The government has blocked access to content via public airwaves, different stores “block” access to various products, movie theaters “block” access to movies with certain ratings, etc. I don’t expect a religious publisher to start publishing literature it thinks is harmful, but I wouldn’t say it’s “blocking” anyone.