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I remember when this happened and I remember how pissed I was at Apple for the move they pulled. Amazon was essentially protecting the publishers from themselve

by brd 15y ago

I remember when this happened and I remember how pissed I was at Apple for the move they pulled. Amazon was essentially protecting the publishers from themselves (think music industry) and Jobs came in and threw the entire arrangement out the window. Apple doesn't care about selling content, they care about selling hardware. Within that line of thinking, anything bad for Amazon's stranglehold on books is a good thing for Apple since it reduces the friction of switching from a kindle to an ipad. You could easily make the argument that Apple pulled this move thinking "Whats bad for Amazon is good for us" and totally screwed everyone else (publishers and customers) in the process. Apple's move was certainly unscrupulous and quite possibly illegal.

brd 15y ago
Was this response really such low quality that it warranted a downvote? Or are we just not allowed to voice any criticism of Apple on HN anymore?
- raganwald 15y ago
  I don’t know about your response, but I can predict the reaction to a comment asking why another comment was downvoted. Your original point may or may not have contributed to the discussion, but a discussion about why someone didn’t think a point contributed to the discussion is definitely not contributing to the discussion. And that goes for this reply as well. By answering your reply I’m adding noise, not signal. Which is why this deserves a downvote as well as your query.
  - pbhjpbhj 15y ago
    >a discussion about why someone didn’t think a point contributed to the discussion is definitely not contributing to the discussion // I disagree. A person's motivation for dissent is extremely pertinent.
roc 15y ago
> "Amazon was essentially protecting the publishers from themselves" Pre-iBookstore, Amazon was offering a 65-35 revenue split, with the fat end going to Amazon. There are certainly pros and cons to each approach, but Amazon wasn't protecting anything but their own interests and profitability.
- brd 15y ago
  I did not mean to portray Amazon as some benevolent 3rd party in the industry. Amazon was most certainly milking the publishers for what they were worth but they were doing their best to ensure that the content itself stayed reasonably priced and accessible to consumers in order to curb piracy. I have zero problem with Apple forcing a renegotiation of terms between publishers and Amazon. I have serious qualms about Apple totally disrupting what was a very healthy trend towards reasonably priced ebooks. Amazon was most certainly protecting publishers from themselves regardless of the split behind the scenes. When you compel people to pirate content there is nothing for anyone to split. Apple disregarded this entirely because at the end of the day they don't really care if people pirate, they just want to make sure the content is available on their hardware.

by brd 15y ago

brd 15y ago

Was this response really such low quality that it warranted a downvote? Or are we just not allowed to voice any criticism of Apple on HN anymore?

raganwald 15y ago
I don’t know about your response, but I can predict the reaction to a comment asking why another comment was downvoted. Your original point may or may not have contributed to the discussion, but a discussion about why someone didn’t think a point contributed to the discussion is definitely not contributing to the discussion. And that goes for this reply as well. By answering your reply I’m adding noise, not signal. Which is why this deserves a downvote as well as your query.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  >a discussion about why someone didn’t think a point contributed to the discussion is definitely not contributing to the discussion // I disagree. A person's motivation for dissent is extremely pertinent.

roc 15y ago

> "Amazon was essentially protecting the publishers from themselves" Pre-iBookstore, Amazon was offering a 65-35 revenue split, with the fat end going to Amazon. There are certainly pros and cons to each approach, but Amazon wasn't protecting anything but their own interests and profitability.

brd 15y ago
I did not mean to portray Amazon as some benevolent 3rd party in the industry. Amazon was most certainly milking the publishers for what they were worth but they were doing their best to ensure that the content itself stayed reasonably priced and accessible to consumers in order to curb piracy. I have zero problem with Apple forcing a renegotiation of terms between publishers and Amazon. I have serious qualms about Apple totally disrupting what was a very healthy trend towards reasonably priced ebooks. Amazon was most certainly protecting publishers from themselves regardless of the split behind the scenes. When you compel people to pirate content there is nothing for anyone to split. Apple disregarded this entirely because at the end of the day they don't really care if people pirate, they just want to make sure the content is available on their hardware.