4 ms·

You're discounting the big difference here: online makes moving fast easy. Big box stores win because they are unassailable, Amazon surely is not. If enough aut

You're discounting the big difference here: online makes moving fast easy. Big box stores win because they are unassailable, Amazon surely is not. If enough authors don't like Amazon's policies, BAM, up pops a new site as a collective of authors selling their e-books direct to the consumer and not through Amazon. Amazon loses. If Amazon starts being a terrible company to its customers, BAM, up pops a new site which is nice to them. Amazon loses. Amazon is not winning because it's buying out the pot, it's winning because it's providing a better service. Publishers lose out because they're the middle-men. They know this. They're too cowardly to directly deal with the customer. If they wanted to, they could have bought out Barnes & Noble and really slugged it out with Amazon, but they won't. They'll let B&N fight the battle for them, and if B&N go bankrupt, well, that's B&N's problem. It's just plain wrong to equate online with offline. Online is a far more competitive and risky market to be in.

brisance 15y ago
I respectfully disagree. There is also lock-in from Amazon because most people will have no clue how to remove the DRM on the Kindle titles and move them to another e-reader should they decide to do so. So the parent comment is valid.
- Tsagadai 15y ago
  Lock-in here only prevents sales on the content side. Yes, you can't shift your whole collection between hardware vendors yet but you also can't buy from several content vendors yet. If someone announced DRM free books they could sell to all of their competitors' devices. Opening up content sales is more important than opening up hardware from a consumer point of view. You can buy a ebook reader from hundreds of vendors but you can only buy books for it from a couple (including the one that sold you the reader).
  - WalterBright 15y ago
    There is no technical reason preventing you from creating your own ebooks & distributing them and having them work on the kindle.
- WalterBright 15y ago
  You can create & supply ebooks readable on the Kindle without ever going through Amazon.
- Lewisham 15y ago
  The DRM on the Kindle was largely forced by the publishers, was it not?
modfodder 15y ago
Wal-Mart has rarely been a terrible company to it's customers, same with Amazon. But the customer is only part of the ecological equation. You can be great to the customers but destroy the whole ecosystem. This is what happens with companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon. Wal-Mart didn't start out destructive. They become destructive once they were large enough to bend the manufacturing companies to their will. Amazon has and is doing the same. And once again, like Wal-Mart before it, the destruction is only seen in the aftermath. I've shopped at Wal-Mart. It's convenient and cheap, the same reason I still shop at Amazon (convenience trumps morality for me many times, as it does for a lot of people). But what you can end up with are corporations that employ a scorched earth policy and will design their business to make little or no money so they can outlive the competitors. And what happens when they win? Have you ever driven through a small town and seen a vacant Wal-Mart building? I have. They end up destroying the market and then leaving because they know people have no choice but to drive 30-45min to the Super Wal-Mart in the next town. Pure capitalism can easily become parasitic and will kill of the host then move to another. The idea that online is riskier than offline is a joke (competitive yes, but because there is less risk to online). It's easier now than ever before to start a business, fail, then pivot, pivot, pivot (who even heard of companies pivoting in the 80's). If offline is so easy why isn't hacker news all about opening up a competitor to Wal-Mart? I assume by that comment you probably have never started an offline business. The ideal outcome to all this would be for Amazon to remake publishing into a market where the bulk of the profits go to the author/creator. That would be great to see. But don't think for a second that what Amazon is doing to the publishers, they won't also do to the authors when the time comes. And if there is one (or two) dominant ebook reader(s), that is exactly what will happen. But in your eyes that would be alright because Amazon is making it cheaper for the customer.
- Lewisham 15y ago
  The idea that online is riskier than offline is a joke (competitive yes, but because there is less risk to online). It's easier now than ever before to start a business, fail, then pivot, pivot, pivot (who even heard of companies pivoting in the 80's). If offline is so easy why isn't hacker news all about opening up a competitor to Wal-Mart? I assume by that comment you probably have never started an offline business. You read what you wanted to read in that statement, not what I meant. What I meant was: big online companies are vulnerable in a way big offline companies are not. Of course I am not suggesting that Mom and Pop small business is easy. It's not, it's incredibly hard. That's one of the reasons why big offline companies are able to destroy the markets they move in to. It's no mistake that just a week or so ago pg was asking for applications to YC to disrupt Amazon. pg doesn't fund things he doesn't think have a chance of winning.

brisance 15y ago

I respectfully disagree. There is also lock-in from Amazon because most people will have no clue how to remove the DRM on the Kindle titles and move them to another e-reader should they decide to do so. So the parent comment is valid.

Tsagadai 15y ago
Lock-in here only prevents sales on the content side. Yes, you can't shift your whole collection between hardware vendors yet but you also can't buy from several content vendors yet. If someone announced DRM free books they could sell to all of their competitors' devices. Opening up content sales is more important than opening up hardware from a consumer point of view. You can buy a ebook reader from hundreds of vendors but you can only buy books for it from a couple (including the one that sold you the reader).
- WalterBright 15y ago
  There is no technical reason preventing you from creating your own ebooks & distributing them and having them work on the kindle.
WalterBright 15y ago
You can create & supply ebooks readable on the Kindle without ever going through Amazon.
Lewisham 15y ago
The DRM on the Kindle was largely forced by the publishers, was it not?

modfodder 15y ago

Wal-Mart has rarely been a terrible company to it's customers, same with Amazon. But the customer is only part of the ecological equation. You can be great to the customers but destroy the whole ecosystem. This is what happens with companies like Wal-Mart and Amazon. Wal-Mart didn't start out destructive. They become destructive once they were large enough to bend the manufacturing companies to their will. Amazon has and is doing the same. And once again, like Wal-Mart before it, the destruction is only seen in the aftermath. I've shopped at Wal-Mart. It's convenient and cheap, the same reason I still shop at Amazon (convenience trumps morality for me many times, as it does for a lot of people). But what you can end up with are corporations that employ a scorched earth policy and will design their business to make little or no money so they can outlive the competitors. And what happens when they win? Have you ever driven through a small town and seen a vacant Wal-Mart building? I have. They end up destroying the market and then leaving because they know people have no choice but to drive 30-45min to the Super Wal-Mart in the next town. Pure capitalism can easily become parasitic and will kill of the host then move to another. The idea that online is riskier than offline is a joke (competitive yes, but because there is less risk to online). It's easier now than ever before to start a business, fail, then pivot, pivot, pivot (who even heard of companies pivoting in the 80's). If offline is so easy why isn't hacker news all about opening up a competitor to Wal-Mart? I assume by that comment you probably have never started an offline business. The ideal outcome to all this would be for Amazon to remake publishing into a market where the bulk of the profits go to the author/creator. That would be great to see. But don't think for a second that what Amazon is doing to the publishers, they won't also do to the authors when the time comes. And if there is one (or two) dominant ebook reader(s), that is exactly what will happen. But in your eyes that would be alright because Amazon is making it cheaper for the customer.

Lewisham 15y ago
The idea that online is riskier than offline is a joke (competitive yes, but because there is less risk to online). It's easier now than ever before to start a business, fail, then pivot, pivot, pivot (who even heard of companies pivoting in the 80's). If offline is so easy why isn't hacker news all about opening up a competitor to Wal-Mart? I assume by that comment you probably have never started an offline business. You read what you wanted to read in that statement, not what I meant. What I meant was: big online companies are vulnerable in a way big offline companies are not. Of course I am not suggesting that Mom and Pop small business is easy. It's not, it's incredibly hard. That's one of the reasons why big offline companies are able to destroy the markets they move in to. It's no mistake that just a week or so ago pg was asking for applications to YC to disrupt Amazon. pg doesn't fund things he doesn't think have a chance of winning.