4 ms·

Um. Amazon is a marketplace, it gets a cut. Since the sale is void, the seller gets 0, Amazon gets some percent of that, which is ... 0. what the hell. how els

by pas 5y ago

Um. Amazon is a marketplace, it gets a cut. Since the sale is void, the seller gets 0, Amazon gets some percent of that, which is ... 0. what the hell. how else could it be? if Amazon is billing sellers for "transaction" costs (or presence on platform cost), that's one thing, but that should be a fixed dollar amount. even using the term "cost" makes no sense, because it's not a cost, it's "would have been revenue", and yes, there's a cost of doing business, handling returns, etc. but all of those are automated on this shiny marketplace, right, right? right!?

gambiting 5y ago
Yeah I genuienly think that the author expects Amazon to just eat the cost of returned books. Looking at their other arguments, I guess it's simply because "they can afford it". And while that's true, I don't see any reason why it should work this way - even actual real life bookstores return unsold books to publisher and the publisher has to eat that cost.
- qzx_pierri 5y ago
  And that’s a good thing, because it gives publishers incentive to put out quality products. I’m convinced almost anything originating on Twitter is knee jerk alarmism. People need to understand that the people making these tweets have incentive to create outrage for more exposure/followers. “Introducing Audiblegate” - Maybe I’m jaded, but you JUST KNOW they were hoping someone like The Verge would eat that up as a headline and link their Tweet in the ensuing article. Amazon has done some really shady stuff in their lifetime, but cmon.
  - subw00f 5y ago
    >because it gives publishers incentive to put out quality products I wouldn't say quality products, lowest common denominator and all.
- prepend 5y ago
  It’s possible that author is bad at basic arithmetic and doesn’t understand that 40% of $0 is $0. It’s interesting to me how many people lack basic financial critical thinking skills and even something super basic like profit isn’t intuitive to all (but it should). So if I see a $5 income one month and a $-1 income next month because the two people returned their book, I get angry instead of trying to understand why. In the old paper publishing world it took a long time for this accounting so it wasn’t as easy to see the returns. I remember a friend who worked at a bookstore and they would tear the cover off books and send the cover back as a return. The return would be credited against the store account and not count towards author royalties.

by pas 5y ago

gambiting 5y ago

Yeah I genuienly think that the author expects Amazon to just eat the cost of returned books. Looking at their other arguments, I guess it's simply because "they can afford it". And while that's true, I don't see any reason why it should work this way - even actual real life bookstores return unsold books to publisher and the publisher has to eat that cost.

qzx_pierri 5y ago
And that’s a good thing, because it gives publishers incentive to put out quality products. I’m convinced almost anything originating on Twitter is knee jerk alarmism. People need to understand that the people making these tweets have incentive to create outrage for more exposure/followers. “Introducing Audiblegate” - Maybe I’m jaded, but you JUST KNOW they were hoping someone like The Verge would eat that up as a headline and link their Tweet in the ensuing article. Amazon has done some really shady stuff in their lifetime, but cmon.
- subw00f 5y ago
  >because it gives publishers incentive to put out quality products I wouldn't say quality products, lowest common denominator and all.
prepend 5y ago
It’s possible that author is bad at basic arithmetic and doesn’t understand that 40% of $0 is $0. It’s interesting to me how many people lack basic financial critical thinking skills and even something super basic like profit isn’t intuitive to all (but it should). So if I see a $5 income one month and a $-1 income next month because the two people returned their book, I get angry instead of trying to understand why. In the old paper publishing world it took a long time for this accounting so it wasn’t as easy to see the returns. I remember a friend who worked at a bookstore and they would tear the cover off books and send the cover back as a return. The return would be credited against the store account and not count towards author royalties.