Amazonian monopolies

[pjthompson]

Here are a couple of cogent discussions of the Macmillan-Amazon war from Charles Stross and from John Scalzi.

I was thinking of buying a Kindle, but I won't be buying one now. I've been an extremely loyal Amazon customer, but until the Macmillan books are back and they stop trying to prove they have the biggest balls, I won't be buying from Amazon.

Just before logging onto the blogosphere and discovering all this, I bought six used books from the Amazon site. Now I'm going to write them a letter telling them they're schmucks. I may come off as a schizo, but I'm a schizo who has spent a lot of money there in the past. Maybe it will make an impression. Probably not. But I'll feel better knowing I'm not contributing to Amazon's attempt to grab power and limit diversity.

Let me be clear: I'm not crazy about paying higher prices for books, but I absolutely believe the market should decide that and not Amazon. If I want to be my own kind of asshat and pay more money for a book, that should be my decision, not that of Jeff Bezos. Besides, if Macmillan can't sell sufficient product at $15 a whack, the market will force them to drop prices—and we won't all be subject to the dictations of a monopoly. Amazon is not "protecting my interests." They're trying to crush all competition so they control the entire supply chain. That is never a healthy situation because once they crush the competition, they dictate everything: prices, format, supply, who gets to play, who gets excluded. I'm taking the long view here and switching to another book supplier.

ETA: In light of Kage Baker's passing, this doesn't seem quite as important, except that her books were amongst those stripped from Amazon. Amazon has posted a pouty letter about how they nobly resisted the Big Bad Wolf of Macmillan but now must cave in to them.

Comments

[wldhrsjen3.livejournal.com]

I'm not crazy about paying higher prices for books, but I absolutely believe the market should decide that and not Amazon.

I totally and completely agree.

[pjthompson]

Absolutely. If Macmillan can't sell sufficient product at $15 a whack, the market will force them to drop prices—and we won't all be subject to the dictations of a monopoly.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I've been standing back from the kerfuffle, largely because I don't buy from Amazon for logistic reasons anyway, but my feeling is that Amazon are behaving as if they're in a monopoly position and they aren't

[pjthompson]

Their behavior seems weird all the way around.

[mnfaure.livejournal.com]

I gave up on them years ago. I just couldn't take their high-handed behavior anymore. Consequently, I've paid more for books than I would have to if I went through them, but I can stomach that.

[pjthompson]

I'm currently having an argument over a pre-ordered item that's from Tor, one of Macmillan's lines. I want them to tell me they are not going to honor the pre-order and they keep telling me it's available through third parties on Amazon. I told them that since I think they're in the wrong on this fight, if they tell me they won't honor the pre-order I will buy it from Barnes and Noble. We're going in circles. I'll probably have to wind up canceling it. Infuriating.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of starting to hate those guys.
I hope they get their balls busted hard on this.

[pjthompson]

I'm furious with them. One of the books I had on pre-order was one of the ones pulled from their site so I wrote to tell them that they were wrong and if they weren't going to honor the pre-order, I would buy it from B&N. They wrote back a bunch of self-serving crap and said the book was still available on their site through a third party, so I wrote back again: "If you are not going to honor your commitment, let me know and I will order it from Barnes and Noble NOT a third party on Amazon." And they wrote again to say blah blah blah, but of course it was my right to cancel if I saw fit. So that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to be buying as much as I can from B&N for awhile.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

As someone who worked in a customer service department not too long ago, I'm getting really tired of companies like that using the cut and paste option to talk around the actual problems customers are referring to.

[pjthompson]

Tell me about it! The language was highly scripted and even more infuriating.