> 4) They're using their monopsony position to fuck over their suppliers (i.e. the publishers) in a manner that threatens a catastrophic crash in author royalti

> 4) They're using their monopsony position to fuck over their suppliers (i.e. the publishers) in a manner that threatens a catastrophic crash in author royalties in the medium term (up to 5 years). NB: as a reader, you may enjoy the short term price benefit, but you'll pay for it in the long term in reduction of choice. This is all based on conjecture, and it turns out to be bullshit. Stross just asserts, with no data, that (a) Amazon is a monopsony (Amazon sells $5 billion of books per year, out of a $13 billion ecommerce book market, out of a $30-40 billion total book market). (b) the discounted price of ebooks comes from the publisher. In fact Slate (or maybe it was The Atlantic?) had an article within the last month about how Amazon is paying THE SAME AMOUNT for ebooks as for hardovers, and Amazon is actually losing money on each kindle book sale, but is doing so to build mindshare. I like half or so of Stross' fiction, but his conspiratorial ranting annoys the piss out of me.