3 ms·
Charlie Stross (cstross here on HN) has an interesting post on this: By driving down the unit revenue, Amazon makes it really hard for publishers—who are a pro
by jpatokal 12y ago
Charlie Stross (cstross here on HN) has an interesting post on this:
By driving down the unit revenue, Amazon makes it really hard for publishers—who are a proxy for authors—to turn a profit. Eventually they go out of business, leaving just Amazon as a monopoly distribution channel retailing the output of an atomized cloud of highly vulnerable self-employed piece-workers like myself. At which point the screws can be tightened indefinitely.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/05/amazon-malignant-monopoly-or-j.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/05/amazon-m...
- dublinben 12y agoI would happily buy a DRM free copy of his books directly, but I can't.
- tygorius 12y agoWell, by that logic the record studios were proxies for musicians. Sorry, not buying that argument. If I were Stross I'd certainly be peeved at the loss of access to customers and, by extension, income. Especially if I were obligated by contract to stay with a publisher on the outs with Amazon. But arguing that Amazon's endgame is to put him out of business seems a stretch. We're still in the early stages of the ebook publishing disruption and I suspect that as with music, direct commercial channels between producers and consumers is the future.