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Comment by ig1 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think the author understands what "customer-centric" means. People who publish books for the kindle aren't Amazon's customer, the people who buy kindle books are.

Amazon applying a quality guideline that stops people republishing copyleft content makes perfect sense from a consumer viewpoint.

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That may be the case but that's not what she said, she made it sound like he did something illegal and threatened to close his account.

I have a feeling that Amazon may actually dislike people selling crowdsourced material as assembled books, not necessarily copyleft books (such as Dive into Python).

More books for sale means more money. Amazon likes more money.

I can think of no reason Amazon would be against selling crowdsourced books (besides quality control). If you have ideas, please enlighten us.

I can think of no reason Amazon would be against selling crowdsourced books (besides quality control).

You can think of no reason besides that one reason you gave? ;)

According to the email he received, Amazon doesn't allow you you publish material you do not own the copyright to. So this effectively kills crowdsourced material unless you have a copyright assignment clause.

Right, but you made it sound like a problem. It seemed like you were disagreeing with ig1, rather than rephrasing his exact thoughts.

I did technically disagree. Crowdsourced and copyleft aren't the same thing. I gave the example of Dive into Python as a copyleft publication that is not crowdsourced and where the copyright is held by one person (or publishing company).

If they really cared about quality control, then they'd have better proofing of kindle content based on older, scanned texts.

People who publish books are absolutely customers of Amazon. If they're using a service provided by the company (the ability to publish books) then they're a customer.

No, they're suppliers.

By your reasoning Coca Cola are a customer of Walmart because they use the shelving facility provided by Walmart.

I'm not saying suppliers aren't important, they are, but they aren't however customers.

Well, they are. Wal-Mart is providing Coca-Cola the service of getting their drinks to consumers; which makes Coca-Cola a customer of Wal-Mart.

I don't think an extended debate over semantics is helpful, but virtually no one would use the word "customer" in this way. If the Wal-Mart CEO said they were going to lower prices for customers, the Coca-Cola shareholders are unlikely to be happy. Consider that Coca-Cola is selling goods to Wal-Mart for cash. That is generally not what a customer looks like.

It's common for companies to pay for retail shelf space and placement.

Acer just sent me a $20 rebate check on the monitor I bought, but they ain't my customer.

That's just not the same at all.

Well by that logic, I provide a service of funneling money into Wal-mart's bank account -- therefore Wal-mart is also my customer.

It's evident that you don't know what you're talking about. That is not a service in any meaningful way. A service is any kind of action performed for compensation. That action cannot be the actual act of compensating. Does Walmart give you money for giving them money? No.

This translates to Amazon. They are selling the rights to distribute one's books on their platform, and in return take 30%. Amazon provides a service, the bookseller pays them money. (In this case, that money is zero, but that's beside the point. In general, the seller is Amazon's customer.)

I was replying to the comment that claimed Coca-Cola was Wal-mart's customer instead of their supplier -- I wasn't taking a stance on Amazon.

It was Amazon's existing customers that requested that the book be published according to the article.

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