Scott Turow on why we should fear Amazon
The feds might sue Apple and publishers over pricing. But a top author suggests the e-retailer’s playing monopoly
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/13/scott_turow_on_why_we_should_fear_amazon/singleton/
No upside comes without a downside, there are always losers to go with winners (in an ideal world the loser would be OK with losing, but that implies that the winner wins nothing of consequence so such an ideal world might be boring as hell). I have read lots of bad things about the traditional publishing industry (and my personal efforts to get published certainly haven’t made me a fan), but based on the article/interview above it seems clear that Amazon is engaging in anti-competitive practices (something that is OK when you are small, but at some magical moment becomes not-OK when you have reached a certain size; see Microsoft and Google for examples) and while they clearly lack what is traditionally called a monopoly, they have such a huge impact on the market their decisions have monopoly-like impact. Of course, if they own the right politicians (something Google execs are slowly learning (and MS execs learned a decade ago)) then it is all moot, even if a suit is filed the prosecution will drag on well past the point the competitors will care as they will all be driven out of business.
Just like WalMart, though, it is hard to decide to pay more going to some other store just to support some local vendor who might wind up going out of business anyway.
