This is a strange article for the Times. Some people who previously attended an event that nobody has ever heard of have now either not been invited or chosen not to attend. Very few people are talking about it on the record. Is this news? What's the significance?
The Times' coverage of the Amazon/Hachette feud has been the first time I've ever understood the phrase "East Coast media elite".
Basically, whenever a private entity is having kind-of-secret or completely secret parties, you can bet a lot of weird business deals are happening, or at least, steps that take place before decisions are made (buttering people up, exchanging lavish gifts, etc.). This meeting was possibly a move by Bezos to win favour of writers and artists who are currently positioning themselves against Amazon, and kind of threaten the ones against him by not inviting (in the sort of "you won't have a career if you go against me" message kind of way, I'm guessing, I don't know).
But at any rate, I do think whenever meetings of this sort happen, newspapers should cover it.
There is an interesting selection process at work here: power brokers rubbing elbows with other power brokers, forming trust bonds and learning who can or can't be trusted not to spill the beans (with all parties knowing that a single infraction means no more invites).
I believe this is the root of the varying forms of "Illuminati" paranoia that have become so pervasive in popular culture. There need not be a single agency or agenda proactively manipulating the world; rather, all it takes is the self-interest of powerful individuals, who recognize the value in keeping secret deals secret, and the aspirationally powerful who recognize this dynamic and conduct themselves accordingly, in the hopes that they'll get invited to the club.
Of course, leaks do happen, but what's so elegant about this system is that it is so blandly informal, looking like little more than the rich indulging themselves.
Ex Amazonian who worked in their publishing space.
Having not been to Campfire, but knowing the publishing space there won't be business deals done at the conference it just won't happen. The culture of publishing is one where people don't do deal making anywhere in public, even a very exclusive party. Personal relationships are very important when it comes to deal making in publishing. What Amazon will likely do is show authors some very persuasive presentations with data that can't be crosschecked because it is Amazon's own data. But even more importantly they can show actual human beings authors could work with which is a necessary part of doing deals aka the golf course deal making method.
In terms of threatening people with "you won't have a career" I don't think Amazon would ever actually say that to anyone. But you can be sure they won't go out of their way to talk someone out of that impression. Overall Amazon only speaks to the world at large when they want to world to know something.
I think the bigger thing is most of their authors have longstanding deep relationships with their publishers. Amazon is poaching on these and doing it in secret. Campfire is the perfect place to have someone break their existing relationships in a small way. A few top authors make up the majority of a publishing houses profits, lose some of them to self publishing or even Amazon and publisher economics start to crumble.
Or maybe there's no big conspiracy at all, and Bezos just likes to have a good time hanging out with people he likes (which doesn't include the people who have been calling him names in public for the last six months).
We're talking about a guy who leads the world's biggest commerce site... gathering writers and artists for a big party where he gives them big gifts and even goes so far to provide them transportation on private planes.
It's an entirely possible explanation that Bezos just loves throwing parties and giving writers gifts for no other reason than the fact that he loves giving people he's not related to big gifts... I don't discount that as a possibility, I'm just saying it's also a possibility that there's backroom dealings taking place designed to strengthen Amazon's position. I don't think it's unreasonable to cast doubt on this theory, that Bezos may have ulterior motives to this party.
As I said before, the meeting is happening possibly to curry favor from people who matter: writers and artists. Right now, a lot of writers and artists are siding against Amazon and with publishers (Hachette in this case).
Since I've been working in the place I work at now, I've learned that these things... happen. They're not make-believe stories thought up by conspiratorial nuts, they actually happen. My boss got together with a higher-up from a different department... all to get her daughter a job (I found this out only accidentally). David Cameron used to have dinner outings with Coulson et al., Murdoch invites people like Brin, Page, Zuckerberg, etc. to play golf with him, now Bezos ostensibly spends millions on parties with people who make the products he sells. Are we really so naive to believe that the people hosting the parties have zero ulterior motive all the time? Murdoch just likes to play golf with Sergey Brin because he thinks Brin is a stand-up guy? Bezos has so much time on his hands that he loves nothing more than to spend it with writers whose books he sells? And give them gifts? And give them a ride on his private jet? He's got no family to tend to? No over-work? Come on. Join the real world. It's ugly a lot of times, unfortunately. Journal outlets keep it in check by publishing articles like this and asking questions.
I recommend doing a second-reading on lukifer's comment, I think it really gets it.
"Right now, a lot of writers and artists are siding against Amazon and with publishers (Hachette in this case)."
Not really. The petition in support of Amazon has about 4 or 5 times as many signatures as the pro-Hachette one. The extremely wealthy authors who owe their success to the old model of artificial scarcity don't like changes, true, and neither do old media outlets like the New York Times. In the old days, the major publishers had an iron lock on what got published, and the New York Times had a near-lock on what became a "bestseller".
Now anyone can publish anything they want, and bestsellers are determined by what people actually buy, rather than some secret method known only to the New York Times.
> Are we really so naive to believe that the people hosting the parties have zero ulterior motive all the time?
Well, until you have some actual evidence, I'm just going to operate under the assumption that Bezos likes parties.
> Well, until you have some actual evidence, I'm just going to operate under the assumption that Bezos likes parties.
Oh, absolutely. I'm also entertaining that as a possibility myself. I'm just arguing that news journals should cover events like this anyway, because they almost always are noteworthy in one way or another.
There is an unbelievable amount of corruption everywhere you look: politics, technology, the valley. We've almost become too fatigued, we almost don't care, it doesn't shock us anymore. That's upsetting to me. One way corruption can perhaps be cut short is if we keep a close eye on these things, check out what's suspicious (I'd say this Bezos-hosted party qualifies as being suspicious, even if there is absolutely zero de facto evidence of there being corruption), and jump on first sign of wrong-doing. If we'd done that earlier with News of The World, less messy shit would have taken place. If we'd been watching Steve Jobs closely in the beginning, maybe we could have caught him before he did that collusion shit with the other CEOs in the valley.
How do you tell the difference between a few billionaires hanging out together and "backroom dealing"?. Once you reach certain levels of wealth it probably becomes awkward to hang out with regular people.
Were previous year's coverage as oddly ominous sounding as this? The article pretty much went out of the way to make it not sound like a secret meeting. At least, not in the clandestine sense. More one that people keep low key.
The whole point of the article is that there was no coverage in previous years, because participants are so terrified of crossing Bezos that they've been assiduous about not talking about it.
I get that, but the article paints it as a private party, basically. Goes so far as to show that it was never a full secret. Just not a public event, either.
Basically a predictable hatchet job, or rather, the continuation of the jihad that the East Coast publishing establishment has always carried out against Amazon.
Bezos has made enemies of the proverbial men who buy ink by the tank-car load.
This is interesting as fallout from the Hachette fight, or news that Bezos was more interested in literature than anyone ever thought, or news that Bezos was talking to (or perhaps even attempting to influence) certain authors. As a company that can now singlehandedly move the books market in the US, Amazon is pretty tight lipped. This inevitably leads to essentially Kremlinology.
Whereas east coast media elite is generally used to refer to lack of concern about the needs of Americans making under $250k per year (see eg how can I possibly live on just $400k [1]), or the vapid times wedding announcements.
It is significant if you did not previously understand how corporations and government influence the media, which is important if you want to understand how the media is distorted.
The Times' coverage of the Amazon/Hachette feud has been the first time I've ever understood the phrase "East Coast media elite".