

Stephen Colbert lambastes Amazon over blocking, delaying Hachette books - anderzole
http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/06/stephen-colbert-lambastes-amazon-over-blocking-delaying-hachette-books/

======
higherpurpose
I think it's pretty hard to take a stance in this case. On one hand, Amazon
wants to keep prices low for customers, but don't want to pay the subsidy from
their pocket anymore. On the other hand, Hachette doesn't want to pay part of
that subsidy either, and they threaten the authors that if Amazon has its way
they will have to get a smaller royalty (because they aren't willing to lower
their costs).

Amazon has a lot of power, and they could easily start abusing it either soon
or in the future, but for now I think they are fighting in the interest of the
customer. Hatchette on the other hand, is acting much like the big music
studios - threatening that the authors/artists will be the ones to lose, and
_not them_.

The truth is the publishers and big studios are becoming increasingly more
threatened with extinction, and in the future there won't be room for them to
take the _majority_ of revenue from a book. Either they adapt to take a much
smaller cut, or they will go bankrupt.

That's why I think Amazon is on the right side of history here. I also think
Amazon is on the right side of history, because I don't think most ebooks are
worth $15, which is what most of these publishers want them to be at (going by
the deal with Apple).

Either way, Amazon won't be subsidizing their ebooks by $3+ forever. They will
eventually raise the prices, and I don't think that will be good for _anyone_.
Not Amazon, not the authors, and not the publishers either, as there will be a
lot fewer ebook sales. I think the $9.99 price point played a huge role in
getting people to read e-books (remember when reading ebooks wasn't anywhere
close to the acceptable way of reading a book?).

What's the ideal scenario here? It's for ebooks to remain $9.99 (or less) and
for Amazon to end the subsidies (which would make things easier for their
competitors), which of course means the publishers will have to take that $3
cut themselves (I don't think the authors should take any cut, as they already
get pretty low royalties from the big publishers). If you agree that this is
the ideal scenario, then you agree that Hatchette is in the wrong here.

