Shunning Amazon, Booksellers Resist a Transformation | Hacker News Reader

Shunning Amazon, Booksellers Resist a Transformation

nytimes.com

24 pointsarvinds19 comments

Why do we tolerate the middle men at all? There are actually a number of easy ways to sell digital books online without an Amazon or anyone else.

For example, http://pulleyapp.com/ is $6 a month. That's it. You can price your ebook whatever you want. You don't have to give another company a cut of each purchase.

There's also http://www.shopify.com/

There are open source solutions like http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-digital-downloads/

The architecture of the internet is actually outdated. I mean, it may take a few years for people to realize this, but the fact that we have to go to a specific web domain, which is tied to specific hardware or private network, in order to search for things like Kindle books (or Google for practically everything else), is creating monopolies that aren't beneficial to consumers or retailers.

What we want is a content-centric internet that works more like peer-to-peer networking. Wikipedia has one variation of the idea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-centric_networking

Usually people dismiss that idea out of hand in the context of e-commerce because they don't understand how peer-to-peer networking can be secure or private. But in fact it can be, it has to be, and it will be. Its going to take everyone a little while to figure that out though.

We tolerate middle men because it's easier for a single human with a singular vision to create an easily searchable marketplace of creators' content than it is for the creators themselves to come together in a cooperative and form it themselves.

TLDR; Humans are good at following leaders and complaining about results rather than working together and leading themselves.

(Presidential elections are a perfect example of this)

There's value to some creators in having a marketplace in order to get exposure and to provide a convenient browsing experience for customers. Independent musicians who give away their music for free are often grouped into netlabels[1] so that people can find them and discover other works that are somehow related.

A large portion of applications on the Mac App store were and are available directly from the creators, but plenty of authors elected for a presence there. More independent models, such as Cydia and Ubuntu Software Center still take a cut of sales.

Review sites might be one way around the issue-- say, if it was possible to browse GoodReads and every book you were interested in had a link to whatever distribution method the author chose. But then, if GoodReads was the go to site for books, it might start charging a cut too, or prioritizing sponsored links.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netlabel

As far as e-books go - the problem is 'reach'. Pulley and Shopify just don't have the reach that Amazon does. Authors are still trying to figure out the best ways to monetize without going through publishers and it will take time for their thinking, and Amazon's competitors, to mature.

With Amazon playing the game of undercutting the entire market until everyone else is dead, the only way to win is not to play.

Every single purchase from Amazon — book or otherwise — is a vote for Bezos' monopoly over your culture.

In what world is pricing a digital version of a book slightly below its dead-tree variant "undercutting"?

This is not publishers shutting out Amazon, this is publishers shutting out digital books, and they have been doing so all along, consistently pricing ebooks at the same or higher price of print copies and colluding with Apple in a price fixing scheme.

Why would an ebook be cheaper? Is it not more convenient? Price comes from value, not what it costs to make so being easier to produce has nothing to do with the price (well, except the price floor).

Are you seriously suggesting that the cost of the physical book, and it's construction has nothing to do with the price of the book at the bookstore?

It has one thing to do with it: it sets the price floor. If the market value of that book is not past the price floor then there's no point in making it.

But some people who don't get how markets work think prices are: how_much_work_I_did+how_much_materials_cost+profit_amount_I_want. It's not. The item is priced based on the value it is perceived to provide.

The equation you just posted is the seller's value equasion. That's how the seller measures value in order to price the goods.

Things are priced by the buyer according to perceived value also, but using a different equation. a sale occur when the two points close enough that either or both parties are willing to adjust their price point to make the sale.

The seller "prices" the goods at marginal cost + profit. The buyer decides if there is enough values at that price for her to make the purchase.

It is not, as long as it has DRM.

Amazon is creating value by reducing waste and streamlining distribution of goods. They operate in a fair market, and if they ever raise their prices later they'll be undercut by someone else, so they don't have a monopoly which you should fear. They do have some DRM in place with Kindles and such, but I believe you're overblowing this. What are you worried about in particular?

I buy a lot of books, mainly used, mainly physical. In most cases, I find that I can get as good or better price vie Abebooks as through Amazon.

Amazon, like Walmart, while it saves money for consumers, takes a lot of that money out of producers' margins. Selling through Amazon is a low-margin business.

You are aware that Amazon owns Abebooks?

Since this doesn't seem to be common knowledge (and it isn't easily referenced from abebooks.com alone), they were acquired by Amazon in 2008 along with a minority (40%) stake in LibraryThing. See here: http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/01/amazon-to-acquire-abebooks/

Well like any other good company out there, Amazon has not interest to squeeze their producers too much, because they would be killing their own business in the process. The art is to squeeze them just enough so that they feel pressure but still can survive and make money - which is exactly what is happening. Of course, for producers who have not felt any pressure to change for the past xxxx years, ANY pressure feels like extortion. But it's just normal business negotiation like everywhere else. Now their business is catching up as well, that is all.

a) It's not clearly wrong to reduce producer margins. b) Buying used is the ultimate way to take money out of producers margins!

Amazon is definitely changing the game. It's forcing the likes of Tim Ferriss to reach out aggressively non-traditional online outlets to promote the book, leading up to the release date on the 20th. Like he says, if this little experiment works, it can be disruptive - that is, publishers and booksellers alike will have to rethink their current distribution channels.

Thing can only lead to one thing from a macro perspective - a "land grab" of online distribution channels in the upcoming years.

Why everyone seems to hate amazon?

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