It's particularly ironic in this case because the whole point of the exercise for Apple was to increase prices so they could still charge their extortionate 30%. Amazon wasn't remotely that greedy.
Apple had only a a small market share at the time. Publishers could have said, nah, we are happy with Amazon, and refused to agree to Apple’s terms. This is about as clear a free market as one gets, that it became an antitrust issue shows how crazytown antitrust law has become.
This was attractive to Publishers because they were terrified of an Amazon monopoly. Amazon selling ebooks at cost did nothing for Publishers long term because it was killing other ebook competitors. This offered a viable competitor to be an ebook outlet.
Instead the misguided Justice department and a judge made Apple back down and what do we have now? Exactly what publishers feared, an Amazon monopoly.
This is like complaining a painting is too expensive because the canvas and paint only cost 100 dollars.
The major value of a book, to a consumer, is the words it contains not the paper it’s printed on.
The art itself hasn't changed, so it makes sense to demand that the price follows when the distribution cost approaches zero.
As for whether that would actually happen...
And what happened after their victory is that prices didn’t go down, they look like they went up.
Of course this has little to do with the artists, they typically don’t get to price their novels, and only get a royalty that’s not likely impacted much either way. Higher prices are higher royalties per unit, sure, but if they lead to lower unit sales it’s not likely better.
Yes, and that's exactly my point.
If a paperback book is priced at $10, and it costs $2 to manufacture, $1 to ship, and $3 to market (made-up numbers, but the values don't matter), with the rest going to the author/publisher, then we're saying that piece of art is worth $4. If the e-book edition costs $8, perhaps that $3 marketing cost is still there, but the marginal cost of storage and distribution is probably a few cents... so somehow now that piece of art is worth $7? That doesn't add up.
I mean, I get it: the price you pay for something is generally just the highest price that the market will bear, a price that maximizes profit... and the "intrinsic value" of something doesn't matter or maybe doesn't even exist. Even the cost to produce it may not matter, if the seller wants to use a particular item as a loss-leader.
What I object to is, back when e-books started being a thing, the big promise was that they'd be so much cheaper than physical books, because the marginal cost to "produce" and "ship" one is near-zero. But of course that promise never materialized; it was just marketing to get people to buy Kindles.
It has nothing to do with platform prix fixing, it has to do with de-facto monopoly over a portion of US mobile devices, or rather, an oligarchy between Google and Apple.
The same issues existed with oil, electricity and telephone networks - there were claims of 'choice' but really there was not.
/s
If a smaller company, or even one of us on HN had sued Apple would that suddenly make it okay? Apple's actions haven't changed, why should the identity of the plaintiff matter?
Regarding your specific example - if Amazon is doing something wrong, then an antitrust case should be brought against them too. But that doesn't (and shouldn't) give anyone the right to continue doing something unethical and illegal.