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There's a particularly good link to an insightful counter-argument from another author way down in the comments: http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/a

• moomin 12y ago
  I note that even after he includes other media in the size of these behemoths, the numbers he's quoting are factors of 5 or 6 smaller than Amazon (a number notably missing from his analysis) Yes, on many occasions these guys would be the scariest 12-year old in the playground. But this time they're getting picked on by Mike Tyson.
  • vosper 12y ago
    You're right that he doesn't mention that Amazon's revenues dwarf the publishers' revenues, though this [1] Guardian article suggests that Amazon's book revenues may be as low as 7% of the revenue figure that Stross cited. At any rate, the most interesting points in the blog post were that firstly it's not clear that Hachette aren't playing some shenanigans of their own with delivery times, and secondly that there's this whole background of court-ordered deal renegotiation that Stross didn't mention. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/23/amazon-escalates-battle-hachette-publishing http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/23/amazon-esc...
    • moomin 12y ago
      The problem is, as far as I can tell, it's the source of the rumour. I mean, there's no evidence that Jeff Bezos is not doing it because he was ordered to by the Bavarian illuminati. For or against. I could say it was unclear, but it'd be more likely a transparent contra-play by a PR company representing someone doing something bad.