
Apple Isn’t The Only Disruptor: How Amazon Is Killing Publishers - FluidDjango
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/apple-isnt-the-only-disruptor-how-amazon-is-killing-publishers/
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corin_
Somewhat depressing that the submission to the actual source yesterday (or was
it the day before) didn't make it to the front page, only had three upvotes
when I found it hours after it's submission... but when TechCrunch regurgitate
it, here it is on the front page.

I really hope this was caused by luck and timing, and perhaps by the
overwhelming focus on SOPA - but a voice in the back of my head is saying that
it could well be getting more attention for being from TechCrunch, which would
be sad.

Regardless, better to see it on the front page now than not at all, good
piece.

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jaysonelliot
I have no love lost for the publishing industry, but the death of printed
books is one of the most tragic large-scale events in my lifetime (actual
human suffering excepted, of course).

I'm still young, but I never thought I would see this day come. Go back to
1990 and tell the average person on the street that in the next few decades,
bookstores would all go out of business and the only way to buy a book would
be to read it on a digital device. They'd either flatly refuse to believe you,
or be frozen in horror. Yet that's where we're headed, not so far in the
future, and as far as I can tell, there's nothing we can do about it.

~~~
javanix
I don't understand this at all.

I don't read books for the experience of turning pages - I read them for the
experience of reading and interpreting and taking in a story.

What exactly is more romantic or useful about reading the latest Stephen King
novel on a tablet versus a bound sheaf of paper?

The death of the printed book boils down reading to the bare essence of
appreciating the written word.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
I think the tablets and e-readers these days still suck. The interface is
still rough around its virtual edges. I can't get into the "zone" if I'm
reading a digital book - not yet. This may change in the future, as today is
still the early childhood of this technology.

I'm also concerned about volatility. Paper books last for decades, or even
more if properly cared for. I struggle to keep e-documents even a few years
old. This is a fundamental problem and it needs a proper solution, quickly.

Finally, DRM gets in the way big time. Lending an e-book? Forget it. Finding
one day that the content on your tablet was remotely deleted from the
mothership? It's unlikely, but the reality is you're at the mercy of whoever
made the tablet and they can certainly do so by invoking some obscure
paragraph in the 200-page EULA that nobody ever reads. You're the "owner" of
an e-book in name only; Amazon is the real big kahuna who calls all the shots.

We will inevitably move to electronic formats, no doubt. But this is the Stone
Age of e-books - these are the stone tablets of e-content. We're still in a
very very early stage.

~~~
ghshephard
Re: Zone - I'm not distracted by changing pages anymore. Just an unconscious
muscle twitch and (with newer kindles, and all iPads), I'm onto the next page.
I've had many a 12+ hour reading sessions, and several "Get sucked into a
book" weekends with digital texts.

Volatility - My books are in the Amazon Cloud. All of my digital books are
still available to me. 100%. I have access to about 5% of the paper books I've
purchased in my life. The _worst_ case scenario, is that Digital Books become
as Volatile as paper books, if Amazon.com goes out of business, and I'm stuck
with (horrors) the physical representation of the book as present on my
kindle/iPad (and Laptop backup, and back blaze backup of my Laptop).

The cloud changes everything for volatility.

DRM Sucks. Big Time. With that said, Amazon's implementation only impact is
that I don't casually lend books to other - which I typically never have
anyways, so no impact on me. I too like (and frequently take use) of the fact
that 100% of my books are available on my Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Laptop, and
CloudReader.

But - with that said - the DRM on physical books is pretty harsh too - You
need to go to a photocopier to make a copy of the book. I just lend my mother
my cloud reader account, and she can read any of my books on the web. Or lend
a second friend my Kindle, and voila - he has all of my books. While I still
have all of them on my iPad and iPhone. Or, if I don't have five lent out, I
can pull them onto my old K2.

I don't think DRM on the kindle has ever stopped me from reading, or lending a
book to someone I know. It _does_ prevent casual lending. Agreed there.

I haven't read a paper book in about 4 years. I find it bizarre to even
consider moving back to them.

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newbusox
I don't know if publishing companies (or even book sellers, like Borders) have
attempted this in the past, but this article (and the article it links to)
lays out a pretty fair case for predatory pricing (sometimes referred to as
"dumping") which is when a business attempts to root out competitors by
selling below cost and then (hypothetically), when its competitors are out of
the market, raises the price above competitive levels. This is generally
illegal under the Sherman Act (antitrust law) in the United States (and likely
in other countries, too), although, unfortunately, it is quite difficult to
succeed on these sorts of claims in the US, most notably because, while a
company is engaging in predatory pricing, consumers are better off since they
are paying less (and a fair number of economists don’t believe that predatory
pricing is rational or even possible to work for various reasons).

Still, there are remedies for companies that engage in this behavior--maybe
they'll come too late to save small publishers in this case, but they exist.

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nextparadigms
Google missed a huge opportunity by not doing anything seriously disruptive
themselves, too, when they entered the e-book market. Did they really expect
to take anything from Amazon by just competing with Amazon head-on?

When market leaders are so entrenched, your only hope to beat them is by
disrupting them and changing the game forever. One way they could've done that
is by trying harder to bypass the middle-men and enforce self-publishing.
They're sort of trying to do that with Google Artist Hub for music artists,
but I doubt they are taking that very seriously, either.

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frabcus
Amazingly you've all missed the big problem with electronic books. One I worry
about from time to time.

There's a reasonable chance our civilisation will collapse in the near future
(within 100 years). (Not going to go into detail of why - think climate
change, viruses, meteors... take your pick)

When it does, there'll still be people around. And if it is a severe collapse,
there won't be the infrastructure to recharge, install new books, manufacture
or maintain e-readers.

This is a pain, as books will be _really_ useful then. e.g. About farming,
traditional methods of manufacture etc.

~~~
macrael
Do you think the internet is a bad idea too? There is an awful lot of digital
knowledge and tools out there these days we won't have access to in the event
of a collapse. I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that this is "the big
problem with electronic books".

