13 ms·

Amazon says France's new bill is 'discrimination'

66 points by tareqak 13y ago

noarchy 13y ago
'Everyone has had enough of Amazon' By "everyone", they undoubtedly mean the ones who could not compete. Amazon's customers are probably not complaining.
- JanezStupar 13y ago
  Not until Amazon gets rid of all the potential competition.
  - GeorgeOrr 13y ago
    I just hope the government goes a step further and requires Amazon increase their costs and charge double the shipping. That way the customers will be protected.
    - JanezStupar 13y ago
      That is obviously a stupid idea. Regardless, that is the most probable and common measure to be taken by the governments worldwide. Because it is straightforward, incredibly lazy and bottom feeding. It is interesting how in two comments we have encompased what are the two greatest flaws of practical governments and free markets. In my oppinion this is a failure of competing merchants as they are sleeping and do not see writing on the wall. Instead of adapting they look up to the regulators to save their comfortable industries. Which in itself is a flaw of the modern western socioeconomic situation. IMHO its a fact that Amazon is constantly maneouvering towards a situation where it becomes dangerous due to its modus operandi. To be safe from Amazon threat, producers will have to find access to markets in a fashion that will prevent them from over exposing themselves to Amazon. And any good regulation should be about lowering barrier to entry towards would be Amazon competitors. I am certain that eventually producers will have to cut out the middleman (Amazon) or vice versa.
- adrianb 13y ago
  I guess you're not familiar with the social-minded European person. They often prefer local businesses with a personality (I go to the book store and have a chat with the owner and other customers... maybe drink a tea, read something right there...) to the big corporation, even when the big corporation offers the same products cheaper.
  - davidw 13y ago
    Which is why Amazon was really struggling in France?
  - pauletienney 13y ago
    You are not totally right. A lot a book sellers are suffering because of Internet competition (especially Amazon), in France.
  - GeorgeOrr 13y ago
    If that's the case, why do they need to pass a law preventing giving the customers a discount? Apparently, it's the competition that doesn't like it. Oddly, customers like discounts and free shipping. Good thing the French government is there to set them straight.
    - rustynails 13y ago
      Should we ban anti-dumping laws? Think about your post for a moment - if a company can afford to run at a loss long enough to destroy the competition, is that good in any way? There is always a balance between service and price ... If there is competition and a level playing field.
  - icebraining 13y ago
    That's a great fairy tale. In reality, at least where I live, is that local businesses don't have accommodations for reading (unlike chain stores like Fnac), the employees can't tell Dostoyevsky from Dan Brown and the selection is simply terrible. So what's been happening is that chain stores have been eating independent book stores alive well before online shopping was widespread.
- flexie 13y ago
  I am a European Amazon customer and I have had enough. Amazon is a heavily subsidized corporation. It operates from a tax shelter (Luxembourg). It underpays it's American staff (who are then receiving US welfare as supplement in order to survive). Giving away delivery for free is a form of predatory pricing. In general, large market players have been banned from predatory pricing under European competition law for decades. Competition is great but let's not pretend that Amazon is outcompeting other (online) bookstores fair and square.
  - jbooth 13y ago
    If we're being completely fair, Amazon's willingness to run in the red for almost 20 years and continually sacrifice profits for market share probably has a lot to do with their prices, too. But your points are worth noting, and Americans might feel a little differently if it was a foreign corporation.
  - jzwinck 13y ago
    Which American Amazon.com employees are receiving US welfare checks? I tried to locate a source for this claim, but came up short.
    - throwaway9101 13y ago
      Possibly an exaggeration, but OP is probably referring to the workers who run Amazon's fulfilment centers.
      - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
        Those fulfillment centers serve Europe?
    - jbooth 13y ago
      It's not Amazon employees, actually, their warehouses are staffed by those terrible day-labor contract places where people show up and wait for hours unpaid to find out if they get to work for minimum wage later in the day. I've seen a lot of sources for Wal-Mart employees under similar pay levels. It was SNAP, TANF and Medicaid primarily, not so much 'welfare'. Still a sizable subsidy, and a decent % of those people's ultimate pay/benefit package.
- gadders 13y ago
  That's the whole point of free markets and competition. The point isn't that they're good for companies, it's that they are good for consumers.
  - gibwell 13y ago
    Predatory pricing and monopolistic practices are not good for consumers. That's why they are illegal.
    - mseebach 13y ago
      Exactly. So if Amazon was guilty of that, they could be charged under those laws. If that is the true justification for the new law, it is at best "pre-crime" enforcement - protecting Amazon from themselves, from getting into a situation where them might risk committing predatory pricing and monopolistic practices. More realistically, follow the money and apply basic public choice theory. It's not like the economic history of the world hasn't seen this pattern a few hundred times before.
  - hackerboos 13y ago
    >That's the whole point of free markets and competition. I know! Those independent bookstores should just move to Luxembourg so they can compete with Amazon.
GeorgeOrr 13y ago
They gave their customers a 5 percent discount AND free shipping. Thank goodness that evil isn't allowed to continue.
- anon1385 13y ago
  The 'evil' is how they treat their workforce.
  - GeorgeOrr 13y ago
    And yet this bill has nothing to do with that. It just protects customers from a discount and free shipping. Thank goodness the government is looking out for the people of France and protecting them.
    - anon1385 13y ago
      So you agree that Amazon is an exploitative business that treats their employees like dirt. So why are you so keen to defend them? I have absolutely no sympathy for Amazon at all and I can't understand why anybody else would if they knew what the inside of an Amazon warehouse was like.
      - GeorgeOrr 13y ago
        I'd be all for worker protection laws. That has however nothing to do with this article.
      - pfisch 13y ago
        Would you prefer it if the warehouses were staffed by robots instead? I'm sort of serious but I am sympathetic to your viewpoint because those warehouses are as close as you can get to a legal sweatshop in a 1st world country.
      - LanceH 13y ago
        Amazon is good because they are paying and treating their employees better than any of the options those people previously had.
lindaverse 13y ago
"Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon, which, by dumping, slashes prices to get a foothold in markets only to raise them once they have established a virtual monopoly." Not to say they might not do that in the future; but aah, generally Amazon's modus operandi has been to continue reducing prices even when they have a 'virtual monopoly'.
- LanceH 13y ago
  Also illegal as a monopoly. 1. high prices - price gouging 2. low prices - anti-competitive 3. same prices - collusion Once a company becomes a monopoly -- even if it's because they are the only sane choice -- everything they do can be construed as illegal.
  - mimiflynn 13y ago
    Not unlike Walmart.
koalaman 13y ago
France is the text-book example of a country falling into irrelevancy through the protection of the status quo.
- vacri 13y ago
  The French believe that culture is important, and that weighs into their economic decisions. I'm not sure why that should be ridiculed.
  - noarchy 13y ago
    If the French really believed this, as a people, then the government would not need to intervene. Amazon would lose on its own merit. This is a vocal minority at work, comprised of the losing side (smaller bookstores), and sympathetic legislators.
    - vacri 13y ago
      Governments have longer vision than the general public, and see knock-on effects much further down the track. It's not to say that governments are visionary, but they're used to thinking in the longer term. One example is that the usual time to pass all your unpopular legislation is right after you've been elected, because it will have been forgotten about by the next election, unless it was a real stinker. Another example is that governments have to be aware of growth patterns to plan infrastructure - they're operating at a different scale. Individuals often don't see the forest for the trees. The 'free market' argument is really bad at long-term planning.
      - GeorgeOrr 13y ago
        So above when you said "The French believe that culture is important" you meant the French Government. Not the short sighted People of France, who you believe need to be protected by the long sighted wise government. Governments never make short sighted political decisions to protect entrenched interests. The People on the the other hand have to be protected from getting discounts and free shipping. Because that would be a bad financial option for them. Thanks by the way, I needed a laugh today.
misnome 13y ago
It's been a few years since I've heard of it, but didn't france always have crazy bookseller-protection laws? I definitely remember there being some law against selling books (or anything?) below the listed RRP, or something similar.
- plerophoria 13y ago
  They have had "Lang Law" in France since 1981 apparently. This prevents individual booksellers from undercutting publisher prices and essentially establishes a price fix on books. It protects booksellers from big bookstores, which is basically the same issue that this article is talking about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Law
  - LanceH 13y ago
    And it protects customers from getting too many books.
    - teamonkey 13y ago
      It's in the publishers' best interest to set a suitable RRP value. Too high and their sales would be eaten up by used copies (which aren't subject to this same law).
      - FeloniousHam 13y ago
        How would this play out in the current ebook marketplace? There are no used ebooks to put the squeeze on printed "new" ebook price.
        teamonkey 13y ago
        ebook prices are moderated by the same price-demand rules as everything else. Availability of a cheaper hardcopy of the book vs. utility and desirability as an ebook; availability of a pirated version vs. the desire to own a legal copy; etc.
spindritf 13y ago
> The BBC's Paris correspondent Christian Fraser said the bill "might be seen as payback" for Amazon's practices of reporting European sales through a Luxembourg holding company, to take advantage of comparatively low corporate tax rates. God forbid Amazon pays less in taxes and then passes the benefits over to consumers. How will we then finance the so needed new EU armed forces? Or welfare for third world immigrants who come here after we bomb their countries?
- easytiger 13y ago
  Too much spite and satire in this comment to parse.
- startupLover420 13y ago
  Elon Musk should create a new startup to rival Amazon, based on open source technosocial interactions and entrepreneur-focused javascript, if the EU shackling Amazon like this.
  - yesplorer 13y ago
    open source technosocial interactions? Holly Molly! what the heck is that? please enlighten me!
    - startupLover420 13y ago
      bitcoins
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  Or our free health care and excellent benefits/welfare systems?
jotm 13y ago
Well, the French gov and the book stores can suck it, everyone can order from neighboring countries. I still can't understand how they don't get that it's a global economy (not to mention the EU, which each member country just disregards when it comes to various laws)...
- riffraff 13y ago
  they can, but then they likely won't get free shipping. E.g. italy has had "save the bookstores" laws enacted for a while, which means amazon can't offer discounts as high as it does elsewhere, but using amazon.it still ends up cheaper than amazon.co.uk, for delivery in italy.
- ernesth 13y ago
  Two things: 1. french books are more expensive in neighboring countries; 2. if you order from another country, you legally still have to pay french tax in addition to the tax from the source country...
  - jotm 13y ago
    Damn, I completely forgot that the books are written in French... In my mind, everyone's reading in English, plus Amazon.de probably doesn't store English and French books, either...
ianstallings 13y ago
Because keeping things exactly the same is how a system thrives..
nhebb 13y ago
We all owe the French a great deal. After all, they voluntarily act as the world's test tube, running bad economic experiments for the edification of the rest of us.
tareqak 13y ago
Why did this post get bumped off of the front page? The article is not spam, it got upvoted by a decent margin within in an hour, and it had almost fifty comments in an hour.
- gutnor 13y ago
  Load of heated comment like "France is shit" ? I think I read somewhere that it was a feature of HN to remove article from the front page when those kind of things happen. (take that with a grain of salt)
  - CrazedGeek 13y ago
    I believe that a post is pushed off the front page quicker if it has more comments than upvotes. (likewise, grain of salt)
smackay 13y ago
Ah France, the land of contradictions, but mostly political posturing. My excellent, French, local, FNAC* store, competes spectacularly well with Amazon and often undercuts them on price - certainly for electronics and probably for books too. This law is probably going to hurt them as well and may ultimately be to Amazon's benefit. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnac
- bambax 13y ago
  Mmm... no. FNAC is not excellent, doesn't compete "spectacularly" -- or at all, is laying of hundreds just this week and in general is a horrible place to shop.
- LBarret 13y ago
  Financially, Fnac (online or not) is really ill and may die soon. It could have been a successful competitor but it rested on its laurels. In any way, it is worse than Amazon. If a store deserved its fate its Fnac online. It is still sad.
bane 13y ago
Of course this isn't "fair". In countries without competitive industries (either because those industries are growing, or because they're fading), the domestic lawmakers want to give local business a leg-up over foreign businesses. For example, this kind of protectionism was a major strategy of South Korea's industrial growth policy. A more specific example, for many years (and perhaps still today), to help foster the domestic film industry, foreign movie imports (which were usually American films, Japanese media has been entirely illegal until very recently) were artificially limited at some small number. The idea was to provide a little competition in the form of high-budget, high-quality films but give enough room for local film makers to figure out the top-to-bottom of making competitive movies. It was a garden fence to let air and light in, but keep damaging critters out. It worked, the Korean film industry is booming, growing and has started exporting and Korean TV dramas are watched heavily all over the region. So, it's no surprise that France, with a strong literary heritage, wants to protect the entire domestic market and supply chain, from writers to publisher to retailers in order to keep such a cultural activity "French". The question is, is it just a wall to keep outsiders out, or is it a garden fence with a growth plan to grow and eventually export French literary culture like Korea exports Movies and Dramas?
mseebach 13y ago
It's funny how it's styled as an "anti-Amazon" bill (I don't know if it's styled like that in France, or if it's BBC editorializing, but I think it's pretty safe to assume). Usually when laws "stick it to the corporations", there's at least the expectation that the cost will come out of the corporation's profits. Then if the corporation raises prices, they can be derided for that. But this is actually not possible here - this mandates a direct, customer-facing price increase. I wonder what will happen to support for the law when consumers realise this.
wuliwong 13y ago
If this was an article stating that the US govt. passed legislation which ultimately made prices higher at IKEA, I would be furious. Footnote, I reside in the US.
LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
of course. Just making sure anti-business image the country has is emboldened even more. 75% tax on top earners and now this. It's not that 75% tax hurts many people. The only thing it really does is propagating france image as a country that treats capitalism, investment and private initiative with the highest dose of suspicion. Thats nit a society thats enetrprenually friendly. It's almost funny how many french i know that prefer to do art and fashion in new york than paris just because france would penalize them for being succesful. And definitely it's not france that gains in the long term due to short sighted and populist left wing policies like this.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  That said, I don't see how another "non populist" argument could be justified by a government... Both the left and right of their government has approved this law. While I understand this is more in line with authoritarian politicking than libertarian politicking, they do make a decent locale/culture argument against a cultureless behemoth like Amazon.
  - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
    I'd rather have people vote with their money than having politicians making people to pay more. If they want to make France stronger they wouldn't be killing its enterprenual spirit every time they can.
    - tokenizer 13y ago
      The way I see it, this is them simply penalizing a monopoly. While you could argue some subsidize their income through Amazon, many more actual French citizens earn their income through independent brick and mortar shops. I honestly don't see how restricting Amazon alone affects the market that much. It wouldn't affect my aspirations towards publishing a book or marketplace.
      - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
        Thank you for your reply. >The way I see it, this is them simply penalizing a monopoly. Starbucks has a monopoly to sell coffee in France? Amazon has a monopoly to sell books in France? What are you talking about? >While you could argue some subsidize their income through Amazon, many more actual French citizens earn their income through independent brick and mortar shops. And in the free market economy this would be a sign that maybe, just maybe, they need to: A) Get much better at this OR B) Start doing something at what they are good enough that people go there and pay them on their own for their services of products. I'm not saying it's easy. All I'm saying is that you won't be able to protect them forever. It's good to treat them like gown-ups right from the get-go without assuming that they are too stupid to do something useful for the broader public. >I honestly don't see how restricting Amazon alone affects the market that much. Then why to insist on doing it? >It wouldn't affect my aspirations towards publishing a book or marketplace. Good.
lkrubner 13y ago
I have several friend who have left New York and moved to France, mostly because they find the lifestyle so relaxed. The French work less than citizens of the USA, and yet they manage to remain a highly affluent society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... Consider these OECD stats on hours worked: http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ANHRS http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ANHRS Average hours worked: 1,479 hours worked in France in 2012, versus 1,790 in the USA. Over 300 hours, which is more than 7 weeks of full time work, which the French avoid. That's over 7 weeks of vacation that the French enjoy, while the people of the USA are working. The French accept a smaller per capita income in exchange for a great deal of leisure. My friends tell me that France is especially pleasant as a nation to raise children in, as the relaxed lifestyle makes it easier to achieve something like a balance between family and work. In the USA politicians, and movies, tend to adopt a strong rhetoric about being pro-family, but having the leisure to spend time with one's kids is, from what I'm told, easier to achieve in France. France manages its economy in a manner that is heavy handed, when compared to the style that's been adopted in most of the English speaking countries. The advantages of this heavy handed management should be carefully considered: an affluent yet relaxed lifestyle.
- skwirl 13y ago
  I really don't see the relevance of your comment. All of what you are saying may be true, but what does it have to do with allowing Amazon to offer whatever discounts they want? In what way does this law promote an "affluent yet relaxed lifestyle?" Wouldn't being able to afford more books because they are cheaper on Amazon make me effectively more affluent? Wouldn't the free delivery make me more relaxed?
  - pekk 13y ago
    I believe I understand the argument: if the French system has advantages, why should the English-speaking world dictate to France how it should manage its own economy?
    - 13y ago
ffrryuu 13y ago
Feel free to not do business in France then .
willyt 13y ago
A lot of the discussion on this thread has descended into a slanging match about French regulation and work life balance vs US libertarianism and customer service. This is mostly missing the main point which is that Amazon has an unfair advantage because they are large enough to take advantage of loopholes in EU sales tax law to gain a ~15% price advantage over local businesses selling the same products. France can't change the sales tax rate of neighbouring countries so they have introduced a new law which is a hack that tries to cancel out this unfair advantage in other ways, and they must be careful to do this without infringing EU competition law. Hence the targeting of certain business practises of 'internet retailers'.
AlisdairO 13y ago
It's interesting. I wonder if this kind of protectionism will become more common/useful as lower-skilled jobs become harder and harder to come by. In the past, reduction of prices via higher efficiencies (= fewer jobs) has generally been a near-universal good: it freed up the workforce for other, more useful activities. Nowadays, there doesn't seem to be any new segment of industry spurring lower-skilled job growth. The flip side of prices getting lower is that job availability/quality goes down. One could see France's stand against higher efficiencies as, effectively, a form of monetary redistribution. Perhaps the choice is between a society with low prices and a large underclass of un/under-employed, or higher prices and most people being able to make ends meet. If you're going to choose the higher-prices approach, the French method of redistribution at least maintains valuable cultural elements and a culture of needing to work - as opposed to straight benefits.

66 points by tareqak 13y ago

'Everyone has had enough of Amazon' By "everyone", they undoubtedly mean the ones who could not compete. Amazon's customers are probably not complaining.

JanezStupar 13y ago
Not until Amazon gets rid of all the potential competition.
- GeorgeOrr 13y ago
  I just hope the government goes a step further and requires Amazon increase their costs and charge double the shipping. That way the customers will be protected.
  - JanezStupar 13y ago
    That is obviously a stupid idea. Regardless, that is the most probable and common measure to be taken by the governments worldwide. Because it is straightforward, incredibly lazy and bottom feeding. It is interesting how in two comments we have encompased what are the two greatest flaws of practical governments and free markets. In my oppinion this is a failure of competing merchants as they are sleeping and do not see writing on the wall. Instead of adapting they look up to the regulators to save their comfortable industries. Which in itself is a flaw of the modern western socioeconomic situation. IMHO its a fact that Amazon is constantly maneouvering towards a situation where it becomes dangerous due to its modus operandi. To be safe from Amazon threat, producers will have to find access to markets in a fashion that will prevent them from over exposing themselves to Amazon. And any good regulation should be about lowering barrier to entry towards would be Amazon competitors. I am certain that eventually producers will have to cut out the middleman (Amazon) or vice versa.
adrianb 13y ago
I guess you're not familiar with the social-minded European person. They often prefer local businesses with a personality (I go to the book store and have a chat with the owner and other customers... maybe drink a tea, read something right there...) to the big corporation, even when the big corporation offers the same products cheaper.
- davidw 13y ago
  Which is why Amazon was really struggling in France?
- pauletienney 13y ago
  You are not totally right. A lot a book sellers are suffering because of Internet competition (especially Amazon), in France.
- GeorgeOrr 13y ago
  If that's the case, why do they need to pass a law preventing giving the customers a discount? Apparently, it's the competition that doesn't like it. Oddly, customers like discounts and free shipping. Good thing the French government is there to set them straight.
  - rustynails 13y ago
    Should we ban anti-dumping laws? Think about your post for a moment - if a company can afford to run at a loss long enough to destroy the competition, is that good in any way? There is always a balance between service and price ... If there is competition and a level playing field.
- icebraining 13y ago
  That's a great fairy tale. In reality, at least where I live, is that local businesses don't have accommodations for reading (unlike chain stores like Fnac), the employees can't tell Dostoyevsky from Dan Brown and the selection is simply terrible. So what's been happening is that chain stores have been eating independent book stores alive well before online shopping was widespread.
flexie 13y ago
I am a European Amazon customer and I have had enough. Amazon is a heavily subsidized corporation. It operates from a tax shelter (Luxembourg). It underpays it's American staff (who are then receiving US welfare as supplement in order to survive). Giving away delivery for free is a form of predatory pricing. In general, large market players have been banned from predatory pricing under European competition law for decades. Competition is great but let's not pretend that Amazon is outcompeting other (online) bookstores fair and square.
- jbooth 13y ago
  If we're being completely fair, Amazon's willingness to run in the red for almost 20 years and continually sacrifice profits for market share probably has a lot to do with their prices, too. But your points are worth noting, and Americans might feel a little differently if it was a foreign corporation.
- jzwinck 13y ago
  Which American Amazon.com employees are receiving US welfare checks? I tried to locate a source for this claim, but came up short.
  - throwaway9101 13y ago
    Possibly an exaggeration, but OP is probably referring to the workers who run Amazon's fulfilment centers.
    - seanmcdirmid 13y ago
      Those fulfillment centers serve Europe?
  - jbooth 13y ago
    It's not Amazon employees, actually, their warehouses are staffed by those terrible day-labor contract places where people show up and wait for hours unpaid to find out if they get to work for minimum wage later in the day. I've seen a lot of sources for Wal-Mart employees under similar pay levels. It was SNAP, TANF and Medicaid primarily, not so much 'welfare'. Still a sizable subsidy, and a decent % of those people's ultimate pay/benefit package.
gadders 13y ago
That's the whole point of free markets and competition. The point isn't that they're good for companies, it's that they are good for consumers.
- gibwell 13y ago
  Predatory pricing and monopolistic practices are not good for consumers. That's why they are illegal.
  - mseebach 13y ago
    Exactly. So if Amazon was guilty of that, they could be charged under those laws. If that is the true justification for the new law, it is at best "pre-crime" enforcement - protecting Amazon from themselves, from getting into a situation where them might risk committing predatory pricing and monopolistic practices. More realistically, follow the money and apply basic public choice theory. It's not like the economic history of the world hasn't seen this pattern a few hundred times before.
- hackerboos 13y ago
  >That's the whole point of free markets and competition. I know! Those independent bookstores should just move to Luxembourg so they can compete with Amazon.

GeorgeOrr 13y ago

They gave their customers a 5 percent discount AND free shipping. Thank goodness that evil isn't allowed to continue.

anon1385 13y ago
The 'evil' is how they treat their workforce.
- GeorgeOrr 13y ago
  And yet this bill has nothing to do with that. It just protects customers from a discount and free shipping. Thank goodness the government is looking out for the people of France and protecting them.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    So you agree that Amazon is an exploitative business that treats their employees like dirt. So why are you so keen to defend them? I have absolutely no sympathy for Amazon at all and I can't understand why anybody else would if they knew what the inside of an Amazon warehouse was like.
    - GeorgeOrr 13y ago
      I'd be all for worker protection laws. That has however nothing to do with this article.
    - pfisch 13y ago
      Would you prefer it if the warehouses were staffed by robots instead? I'm sort of serious but I am sympathetic to your viewpoint because those warehouses are as close as you can get to a legal sweatshop in a 1st world country.
    - LanceH 13y ago
      Amazon is good because they are paying and treating their employees better than any of the options those people previously had.

lindaverse 13y ago

"Today, everyone has had enough of Amazon, which, by dumping, slashes prices to get a foothold in markets only to raise them once they have established a virtual monopoly." Not to say they might not do that in the future; but aah, generally Amazon's modus operandi has been to continue reducing prices even when they have a 'virtual monopoly'.

LanceH 13y ago
Also illegal as a monopoly. 1. high prices - price gouging 2. low prices - anti-competitive 3. same prices - collusion Once a company becomes a monopoly -- even if it's because they are the only sane choice -- everything they do can be construed as illegal.
- mimiflynn 13y ago
  Not unlike Walmart.

koalaman 13y ago

France is the text-book example of a country falling into irrelevancy through the protection of the status quo.

vacri 13y ago
The French believe that culture is important, and that weighs into their economic decisions. I'm not sure why that should be ridiculed.
- noarchy 13y ago
  If the French really believed this, as a people, then the government would not need to intervene. Amazon would lose on its own merit. This is a vocal minority at work, comprised of the losing side (smaller bookstores), and sympathetic legislators.
  - vacri 13y ago
    Governments have longer vision than the general public, and see knock-on effects much further down the track. It's not to say that governments are visionary, but they're used to thinking in the longer term. One example is that the usual time to pass all your unpopular legislation is right after you've been elected, because it will have been forgotten about by the next election, unless it was a real stinker. Another example is that governments have to be aware of growth patterns to plan infrastructure - they're operating at a different scale. Individuals often don't see the forest for the trees. The 'free market' argument is really bad at long-term planning.
    - GeorgeOrr 13y ago
      So above when you said "The French believe that culture is important" you meant the French Government. Not the short sighted People of France, who you believe need to be protected by the long sighted wise government. Governments never make short sighted political decisions to protect entrenched interests. The People on the the other hand have to be protected from getting discounts and free shipping. Because that would be a bad financial option for them. Thanks by the way, I needed a laugh today.

misnome 13y ago

It's been a few years since I've heard of it, but didn't france always have crazy bookseller-protection laws? I definitely remember there being some law against selling books (or anything?) below the listed RRP, or something similar.

plerophoria 13y ago
They have had "Lang Law" in France since 1981 apparently. This prevents individual booksellers from undercutting publisher prices and essentially establishes a price fix on books. It protects booksellers from big bookstores, which is basically the same issue that this article is talking about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lang_Law
- LanceH 13y ago
  And it protects customers from getting too many books.
  - teamonkey 13y ago
    It's in the publishers' best interest to set a suitable RRP value. Too high and their sales would be eaten up by used copies (which aren't subject to this same law).
    - FeloniousHam 13y ago
      How would this play out in the current ebook marketplace? There are no used ebooks to put the squeeze on printed "new" ebook price.
      - teamonkey 13y ago
        ebook prices are moderated by the same price-demand rules as everything else. Availability of a cheaper hardcopy of the book vs. utility and desirability as an ebook; availability of a pirated version vs. the desire to own a legal copy; etc.

spindritf 13y ago

> The BBC's Paris correspondent Christian Fraser said the bill "might be seen as payback" for Amazon's practices of reporting European sales through a Luxembourg holding company, to take advantage of comparatively low corporate tax rates. God forbid Amazon pays less in taxes and then passes the benefits over to consumers. How will we then finance the so needed new EU armed forces? Or welfare for third world immigrants who come here after we bomb their countries?

easytiger 13y ago
Too much spite and satire in this comment to parse.
startupLover420 13y ago
Elon Musk should create a new startup to rival Amazon, based on open source technosocial interactions and entrepreneur-focused javascript, if the EU shackling Amazon like this.
- yesplorer 13y ago
  open source technosocial interactions? Holly Molly! what the heck is that? please enlighten me!
  - startupLover420 13y ago
    bitcoins
k-mcgrady 13y ago
Or our free health care and excellent benefits/welfare systems?

jotm 13y ago

Well, the French gov and the book stores can suck it, everyone can order from neighboring countries. I still can't understand how they don't get that it's a global economy (not to mention the EU, which each member country just disregards when it comes to various laws)...

riffraff 13y ago
they can, but then they likely won't get free shipping. E.g. italy has had "save the bookstores" laws enacted for a while, which means amazon can't offer discounts as high as it does elsewhere, but using amazon.it still ends up cheaper than amazon.co.uk, for delivery in italy.
ernesth 13y ago
Two things: 1. french books are more expensive in neighboring countries; 2. if you order from another country, you legally still have to pay french tax in addition to the tax from the source country...
- jotm 13y ago
  Damn, I completely forgot that the books are written in French... In my mind, everyone's reading in English, plus Amazon.de probably doesn't store English and French books, either...

ianstallings 13y ago

Because keeping things exactly the same is how a system thrives..

nhebb 13y ago

We all owe the French a great deal. After all, they voluntarily act as the world's test tube, running bad economic experiments for the edification of the rest of us.

tareqak 13y ago

Why did this post get bumped off of the front page? The article is not spam, it got upvoted by a decent margin within in an hour, and it had almost fifty comments in an hour.

gutnor 13y ago
Load of heated comment like "France is shit" ? I think I read somewhere that it was a feature of HN to remove article from the front page when those kind of things happen. (take that with a grain of salt)
- CrazedGeek 13y ago
  I believe that a post is pushed off the front page quicker if it has more comments than upvotes. (likewise, grain of salt)

smackay 13y ago

Ah France, the land of contradictions, but mostly political posturing. My excellent, French, local, FNAC* store, competes spectacularly well with Amazon and often undercuts them on price - certainly for electronics and probably for books too. This law is probably going to hurt them as well and may ultimately be to Amazon's benefit. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fnac

bambax 13y ago
Mmm... no. FNAC is not excellent, doesn't compete "spectacularly" -- or at all, is laying of hundreds just this week and in general is a horrible place to shop.
LBarret 13y ago
Financially, Fnac (online or not) is really ill and may die soon. It could have been a successful competitor but it rested on its laurels. In any way, it is worse than Amazon. If a store deserved its fate its Fnac online. It is still sad.

bane 13y ago

Of course this isn't "fair". In countries without competitive industries (either because those industries are growing, or because they're fading), the domestic lawmakers want to give local business a leg-up over foreign businesses. For example, this kind of protectionism was a major strategy of South Korea's industrial growth policy. A more specific example, for many years (and perhaps still today), to help foster the domestic film industry, foreign movie imports (which were usually American films, Japanese media has been entirely illegal until very recently) were artificially limited at some small number. The idea was to provide a little competition in the form of high-budget, high-quality films but give enough room for local film makers to figure out the top-to-bottom of making competitive movies. It was a garden fence to let air and light in, but keep damaging critters out. It worked, the Korean film industry is booming, growing and has started exporting and Korean TV dramas are watched heavily all over the region. So, it's no surprise that France, with a strong literary heritage, wants to protect the entire domestic market and supply chain, from writers to publisher to retailers in order to keep such a cultural activity "French". The question is, is it just a wall to keep outsiders out, or is it a garden fence with a growth plan to grow and eventually export French literary culture like Korea exports Movies and Dramas?

mseebach 13y ago

It's funny how it's styled as an "anti-Amazon" bill (I don't know if it's styled like that in France, or if it's BBC editorializing, but I think it's pretty safe to assume). Usually when laws "stick it to the corporations", there's at least the expectation that the cost will come out of the corporation's profits. Then if the corporation raises prices, they can be derided for that. But this is actually not possible here - this mandates a direct, customer-facing price increase. I wonder what will happen to support for the law when consumers realise this.

wuliwong 13y ago

If this was an article stating that the US govt. passed legislation which ultimately made prices higher at IKEA, I would be furious. Footnote, I reside in the US.

LekkoscPiwa 13y ago

of course. Just making sure anti-business image the country has is emboldened even more. 75% tax on top earners and now this. It's not that 75% tax hurts many people. The only thing it really does is propagating france image as a country that treats capitalism, investment and private initiative with the highest dose of suspicion. Thats nit a society thats enetrprenually friendly. It's almost funny how many french i know that prefer to do art and fashion in new york than paris just because france would penalize them for being succesful. And definitely it's not france that gains in the long term due to short sighted and populist left wing policies like this.

tokenizer 13y ago
That said, I don't see how another "non populist" argument could be justified by a government... Both the left and right of their government has approved this law. While I understand this is more in line with authoritarian politicking than libertarian politicking, they do make a decent locale/culture argument against a cultureless behemoth like Amazon.
- LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
  I'd rather have people vote with their money than having politicians making people to pay more. If they want to make France stronger they wouldn't be killing its enterprenual spirit every time they can.
  - tokenizer 13y ago
    The way I see it, this is them simply penalizing a monopoly. While you could argue some subsidize their income through Amazon, many more actual French citizens earn their income through independent brick and mortar shops. I honestly don't see how restricting Amazon alone affects the market that much. It wouldn't affect my aspirations towards publishing a book or marketplace.
    - LekkoscPiwa 13y ago
      Thank you for your reply. >The way I see it, this is them simply penalizing a monopoly. Starbucks has a monopoly to sell coffee in France? Amazon has a monopoly to sell books in France? What are you talking about? >While you could argue some subsidize their income through Amazon, many more actual French citizens earn their income through independent brick and mortar shops. And in the free market economy this would be a sign that maybe, just maybe, they need to: A) Get much better at this OR B) Start doing something at what they are good enough that people go there and pay them on their own for their services of products. I'm not saying it's easy. All I'm saying is that you won't be able to protect them forever. It's good to treat them like gown-ups right from the get-go without assuming that they are too stupid to do something useful for the broader public. >I honestly don't see how restricting Amazon alone affects the market that much. Then why to insist on doing it? >It wouldn't affect my aspirations towards publishing a book or marketplace. Good.

lkrubner 13y ago

I have several friend who have left New York and moved to France, mostly because they find the lifestyle so relaxed. The French work less than citizens of the USA, and yet they manage to remain a highly affluent society: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin... Consider these OECD stats on hours worked: http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ANHRS http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DatasetCode=ANHRS Average hours worked: 1,479 hours worked in France in 2012, versus 1,790 in the USA. Over 300 hours, which is more than 7 weeks of full time work, which the French avoid. That's over 7 weeks of vacation that the French enjoy, while the people of the USA are working. The French accept a smaller per capita income in exchange for a great deal of leisure. My friends tell me that France is especially pleasant as a nation to raise children in, as the relaxed lifestyle makes it easier to achieve something like a balance between family and work. In the USA politicians, and movies, tend to adopt a strong rhetoric about being pro-family, but having the leisure to spend time with one's kids is, from what I'm told, easier to achieve in France. France manages its economy in a manner that is heavy handed, when compared to the style that's been adopted in most of the English speaking countries. The advantages of this heavy handed management should be carefully considered: an affluent yet relaxed lifestyle.

skwirl 13y ago
I really don't see the relevance of your comment. All of what you are saying may be true, but what does it have to do with allowing Amazon to offer whatever discounts they want? In what way does this law promote an "affluent yet relaxed lifestyle?" Wouldn't being able to afford more books because they are cheaper on Amazon make me effectively more affluent? Wouldn't the free delivery make me more relaxed?
- pekk 13y ago
  I believe I understand the argument: if the French system has advantages, why should the English-speaking world dictate to France how it should manage its own economy?
  - 13y ago

ffrryuu 13y ago

Feel free to not do business in France then .

willyt 13y ago

A lot of the discussion on this thread has descended into a slanging match about French regulation and work life balance vs US libertarianism and customer service. This is mostly missing the main point which is that Amazon has an unfair advantage because they are large enough to take advantage of loopholes in EU sales tax law to gain a ~15% price advantage over local businesses selling the same products. France can't change the sales tax rate of neighbouring countries so they have introduced a new law which is a hack that tries to cancel out this unfair advantage in other ways, and they must be careful to do this without infringing EU competition law. Hence the targeting of certain business practises of 'internet retailers'.

AlisdairO 13y ago

It's interesting. I wonder if this kind of protectionism will become more common/useful as lower-skilled jobs become harder and harder to come by. In the past, reduction of prices via higher efficiencies (= fewer jobs) has generally been a near-universal good: it freed up the workforce for other, more useful activities. Nowadays, there doesn't seem to be any new segment of industry spurring lower-skilled job growth. The flip side of prices getting lower is that job availability/quality goes down. One could see France's stand against higher efficiencies as, effectively, a form of monetary redistribution. Perhaps the choice is between a society with low prices and a large underclass of un/under-employed, or higher prices and most people being able to make ends meet. If you're going to choose the higher-prices approach, the French method of redistribution at least maintains valuable cultural elements and a culture of needing to work - as opposed to straight benefits.