U.S. VS Apple

Fortune has a good article summing up the whole deal between the Department of Justice and Apple (and the publishing industry). Thanks for Passive Voice for the article.

There’s not a lot I can add here because I’m not a legal professional. I can’t speak to the legality or moral authority of any of the parties involved. However, I would like to say this. A lot of people say Amazon sicked the DOJ on Apple and big publishing because, well, they’re Amazon and that’s what they do. That’s how they compete, they drive down the little guys like Microsoft was doing against Netscape.

Here’s the thing, when Netscape “sicked” the DOJ on Microsoft, it was a desperate act to try and compete with Internet Explorer. Whether or not it was warranted or if they did it at all aside, everyone said they did it because they knew Netscape was in trouble.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but Amazon isn’t in trouble.

Maybe they’re just being ridiculously aggressive, that is what a lot of people accuse Amazon of. Of course, I don’t buy from Amazon because of price, I buy out of convenience. I like digital books, I like having everything in one place, and I like being able to buy a book from my bed and read it.

Publishers were afraid hardback book sales would fall, and they had a reason to be afraid. Hardback books are a ripoff and always have been. The only reason they got away with it was because you had no other choice. What sense does it make to pay $20-30 for a book that will come out at $7.99 in a year? It was to make money, pure and simple. When another opportunity to make money came along, publishers avoided it. Amazon jumped on it. Then Apple wanted a piece and had to drag publishers into the future to make it happen.

 

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