
Why I'm ditching my Amazon account - smacktoward
http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2014/05/27/why-im-ditching-my-amazon-account/
======
mjolk
Ridiculous article that boils down to "I can't buy everything through Amazon
and I believe that I'm entitled to an explanation of an inter-corporate
dispute."

>I take it personally that the company doesn’t think it owes me even a half-
baked explanation for why I can’t buy some books from it."

Corporations make decisions based almost entirely on monetary factors. The
article's author is not a shareholder or Amazon employee and is not entitled
to the minutes of meetings or corporate strategy documents. Some bars don't
serve Guinness. If I want a Guinness and the bar doesn't serve it, I'll order
something else or go to a different bar. The bartender doesn't owe me a
handwritten rationalization as to why they're not in a relationship with a
distributor.

edit: Unless Guinness paid me. Then I would complain and blog about it. Maybe
Reuters works the same way.

~~~
WalterBright
Yup. Some airlines serve only Coke, and others server only Pepsi. The nerve!

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delluminatus
Talk about ridiculous. Let me get this straight:

1\. I want to buy all books on Amazon.

2\. Amazon won't sell all books, therefore:

3\. I won't buy any books on Amazon.

I've honestly never before read a serious article that (a) raised such a
trivial, entitled complaint about a company, and (b) responded to the complain
in such a self-destructive way.

~~~
pessimizer
Amazon is a state-supported monopoly (through a strange tax regime for
internet business) that is quickly driving brick-and-mortar stores out of
business. The fact that it uses this position to pressure publishers is
anything but trivial.

~~~
Turing_Machine
"Amazon is a state-supported monopoly (through a strange tax regime for
internet business)"

They're using the same tax regime that's been in effect since the heyday of
Sears, Roebuck (and yes, retailers whined about it then, too -- it even went
to the Supreme Court).

Amazon pays sales taxes in every state where it has a physical presence. Just
like every other business.

Do you think Random Penguin, Hachette, etc. pay taxes in your state? Unless
you live in New York, no, they do not.

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dingaling
_" I take it personally that the company doesn’t think it owes me even a half-
baked explanation for why I can’t buy some books from it. "_

Uh - what? What if Amazon had never stocked books by Hachette in the first
place, would he still have had a tantrum?

There are a lot of items I can't buy on Amazon. There are many more items that
I choose not to buy from Amazon, in order to support other retailers.

But I don't take it personally and neither do they. They don't tell me why
they don't stock certain items and I don't ask. It's business.

 _" You won’t hold it against me if I still stream free programs until my
account comes up for renewal later this year and I bail, will you?"_

Yes, yes I will. If you're going to trumpet your principles you'd better stick
to them.

------
JonFish85
I'm curious whether the Department of Justice would get involved in something
like this at some point? I am very unfamiliar with the legal world, but this
seems borderline illegal for Amazon to do. Are they close enough to being a
monopoly in the books world for this to be anti-competitive?

~~~
jasode
To me, anti-competitive means Amazon colluding with or sabotaging a "
_competitor_ " such as Barnes&Noble[1] or Apple iBooks[2].

The dispute between Amazon and Hatchette is a fight between _a retailer and a
supplier_. Same as Costco/Walmart and a manufacturer, or a broadcast network
NBC with NFL football, or TV series production and an actor's contract
renewal. All negotiating parties use whatever market leverage they have to get
the most favorable terms possible.

Hatchette can still sell via B&N, iBooks, ebay, open their own e-commerce
site, etc. Amazon's hardball tactics are not barring any of those options for
the book publisher.

[1][http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/j-k-
rowling?store=allproduct...](http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/j-k-
rowling?store=allproducts&keyword=j+k+rowling)
[2][http://www.apple.com/ibooks/](http://www.apple.com/ibooks/)

~~~
smacktoward
_> Same as Costco/Walmart and a manufacturer_

Walmart, of course, being notorious for using its huge market position to
force costs onto suppliers. That's part of how it gets the low prices: because
if you sell at retail, and you don't agree your product should costs what
Walmart thinks it should cost, you find yourself locked out of a giant part of
the economy.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Walmart and Amazon sell products at the lowest price possible.

That's what they do. If you aren't willing to sell at the lowest price
possible, you need to be in a different market.

Neither they nor their customers owe you a certain profit margin.

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WalterBright
> If Amazon prevails in this clash, will it put me and my material needs last
> whenever a supplier resists its will?

Let's try reframing that statement:

If Hatchette prevails in this clash, will it put me and my material needs last
whenever Amazon resists a publisher's demands?

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dfc
You have to get a kick out of internet comments. Despite the fact that Amazon
was founded in 1994 and did not go live until 1995. One of the comments
confesses that "I’ve been an Amazon power shopper since around ’92 or ’93..."

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smackfu
Here is the Amazon discussion from a few days ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789753](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789753)

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baldfat
Playing devils advocate here -

Okay I understand abuse of position AGENCY MODEL!!!

Remember when Steve Jobs got with the big 5 publishers? We got the, "They
wanted $15+ for an ebook" price fixing job!!! I am sorry that the fight for
price is still on BUT the HIGH cost of ebooks is a problem and don't even
start to think about the high price of text books and text ebooks!

The issue with cost is big for customers. If the price is decided solely by
publishers readers lose.

~~~
clarky07
ebooks don't have a high cost, and their current prices aren't a problem,
except maybe for publishers, editors, and authors. The cost of a book isn't
even remotely based on the cost of paper. Books don't cost very much to print.
They cost a lot to produce. Just because you know that bits are free to copy,
doesn't mean the book was free to produce.

~~~
chrismcb
When an ebook is priced higher than a physical book then the ebook has a high
cost. Maybe the high cost is justified because people are willing to pay for
the convenience. But I'm not, I'll purchase whichever is cheaper, or not
purchase at all.

~~~
clarky07
i'm not sure publishers are ever pricing ebooks higher than the physical
books, and certainly not often. I'd like to see that if they are. Yes you can
buy used for almost nothing, but that's not really a fair comparison. It's
already been sold once and is in used condition.

------
pessimizer
Amazon is a retailer that has used the fact that it doesn't have to pay taxes,
and was first, to dominate the book distribution business, driving brick-and-
mortar business to close all over the country. To dismiss the fact that it is
openly abusing that position to pressure major publishers to conform to its
business needs as trivial is, at the least, short-sighted.

~~~
Turing_Machine
Sorry, that's not true, unless you're talking about behemoths like Barnes &
Noble and Borders. Indy bookstores have been on the rise for several years
now, after decades of decline.

[http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/27/membership-
ri...](http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/27/membership-rises-again-
for-indie-bookstores/6eH0OS76lxQNeEVSMFUTGM/story.html)

It is widely believed that Amazon's curb-stomping of Borders and B&N is what's
opened up the opportunity for the indies to come back. Yes, they compete with
Amazon, but not nearly as head-to-head as they were competing with Borders and
B&N.

"To dismiss the fact that it is openly abusing that position to pressure major
publishers to conform to its business needs"

How are they "abusing" the publisher and why should we care if they are?
Publishers have been abusing authors for a couple of centuries now, so they
get little sympathy from me. They're not quite as scummy as record companies
and movie studios, but just barely.

Edit for typo: "studies" -> "studios".

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buddylw
It's difficult for me to empathize with publishers in the same way that the
author has done. Wasn't this entire situation created by book publisher's love
for walled gardens and DRM?

Concentrated power seems to me to be the logical result of that kind of
strategy.

~~~
Turing_Machine
That is exactly what created the situation.

They could start up their own stores right now (and even get their stuff
delivered to Kindles) if they abandoned their child-like faith in DRM.

Baen has been delivering straight to Kindle for years now. Of course, Baen has
never been clueless enough to use DRM.

