

Amazon's free shipping costing EUR1,000 per day in France - davidw
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080115-amazons-free-shipping-costing-1000-per-day-in-france.html

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cstejerean
There is a law in France making discounts of more than 5% illegal (on books)?
WHY?

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curi
Because they hate freedom.

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davidw
Hacker news should always be about trying to understand _why_ things work the
way they do, even if we view them as misguided.

A lot of European countries look askance at "cutthroat" competition:

[http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story...](http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10430246)

Perhaps the idea is that in some cases, with too much undercutting, a single
monopolistic vendor might be able to emerge, having killed off the
competition. Which to me seems like a terrible reason to keep laws like this
around - worry about the monopoly when it actually happens, and otherwise let
the market get on with things.

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corentin
French people just don't get economics. It's not taught at school except as an
option in high school programs, where you're only taught keynesian, if not
marxist, economics (french universities are less biased). They're not really
good at rational thinking or logic, either. That's why most people actually
support taxes and protectionist laws.

Sometimes it gets really funny. Amazon.fr has setup a forum to let people
discuss about this issue (the legality of free shipping). Nearly all people
there _praise_ Amazon for the quality of its service, for how it helps
disabled people and country-living people to read books, etc. Yet, for some
reason they feel like they have to save the inefficient bookshops just because
they're small. They'll say that Amazon is the greatest thing and frown upon
capitalism in the same sentence.

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ovi256
>French people just don't get economics.

The fact that they do not agree with you does not mean they do not get it.

>They're not really good at rational thinking or logic, either.

This is so presumptuous it makes me puke.

The comments on The Reg's article
([http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/amazon_ignores_frenc...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/16/amazon_ignores_french_court/comments/#c_132998))
on the subject offer many gems. I have chosen this one, as it explains my
feelings pretty well:

"The law they put in place may seem like protectionism (it probably is), but
if you go to any French town you don't see their supermarkets or major chains
taking over, there are always independently run shops. It's not like over here
in the UK where you are pushed to work out which town you are actually in
because all high streets look the same these days.

You have to ask yourself what you want, nice looking towns with interesting
shops run by locals (as well as a few larger chains) that aren't being driven
out of business by aggressive supermarkets and their internet equivalent; or,
as in most UK towns: mobile shop, bank, mobile shop, discount shop, Next, shoe
shop (schuh, natch), dixons, another bank, tesco metro, boots, Greggs, Pret a
Manger, sainsbury's local, etc. etc. And a couple of massive out of town
supermarkets.

The French made their decision, we made ours, or at least the supermarkets et
al made it for us, I know which I'd rather have."

Oh, by the way, why are books cheaper in France than in the land of the free
(and of cutthroat competition) ?

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corentin
> why are books cheaper in France [...]

I buy quite a lot of books, both in France and from other countries through
amazon.{com,co.uk,ca} and I see no indication that books are any cheaper in
France. The problem is that I don't buy the same kinds of books, so I don't
have a good comparison point. I've searched for book price statistics in
different countries but I wasn't able to find them.

But, since powerful distributors such as Amazon.fr negotiate big discounts
with publishers anyway, I'd rather have a piece of the cake than letting
Amazon take all the profit for itself. What's interesting is that the main
competitor to Amazon.fr, the _french_ company FNAC, offers free shipping as
well but, for some reason, wasn't attacked :)

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MisterMerkin
I don't know who this Jeff Bezos guy is but I like the cut of his jib.

