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one could argue that in the long term book buying consumers are protected from a monopoly that would probably appear
by andreime 5y ago
one could argue that in the long term book buying consumers are protected from a monopoly that would probably appear
- mitigating 5y agoDoes that monopoly result in increased cost for the customer? I assume there is harm to the general economy the problem is quantifying that and also convincing people to pay more for something.
- nlitened 5y agoMonopoly may not result in increased prices, but it does result in increased risks. Which are essentially “hidden” costs for customers.
- tomjen3 5y agoBut they do so by creating a new monopoly where there publishers set the price.
- toxik 5y agoThat’s not what a monopoly is.
- csee 5y agoI find this argument overly theoretical and unsupported. Book selling isn't a natural monopoly. If Amazon dumped books and forced out everyone, can they really then use that monopoly status to raise prices? The market has a fairly low barrier to entry and any attempt to have high margin pricing would be met with new competition pretty quickly.
- lapinot 5y ago> can they really then use that monopoly status to raise prices? No, they can use this monopoly status to extract data or otherwise bully consumers (which they do). Private monopolies are inherently bad.
- csee 5y agoYeah I agree with that. I just don't think they can dump books effectively.