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Am I the only one who doesn't really have a problem with this? A store increasing prices and not offering pre-orders does not seem like much of a problem. Incre
by dollaaron 12y ago
Am I the only one who doesn't really have a problem with this? A store increasing prices and not offering pre-orders does not seem like much of a problem. Increasing shipping times is a little more questionable, but assuming they aren't slowing already ordered books' shipping times, then again, what's the problem?
- dragonwriter 12y agoMore extensive discussion addresses your question in the previous thread on this issue: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789753
- Nacraile 12y agoIt isn't a problem when one store among many decides to increase prices /etc, because business can shift to other stores. The problem arises when there is only one store. I think the comparison with ISPs refusing to upgrade transit links is much more apt than the comparison with a book store raising prices. Of course, Amazon is not techincally the only store. But they are large enough to have substantial market power (and, indeed, the current dispute proves it: it would make no sense for Amazon to embargo a publisher if Amazon had no reason to believe this would do any harm to that publisher). You also need to take into consideration the prevailing trend in the market (power accruing to Amazon) and what this says this about how Amazon will behave in the future (use of power to benefit itself). As much as I dislike publishers: replacing multiple old publishers with a single high-tech publisher does not seem likely to be a happy ending for either consumers or authors.