Walled Gardens and Closed Ecosystems are a Non-Problem

billpatrianakos.me

2 pointsbpatrianakos2 comments

Walled Gardens ARE a problem for some parties. I care about this because problems are the source of ideas for startups.

Book publishers, the ecosystem I'm lived in for the past five years, have a huge problem with Walled Gardens which means Amazon. Right now the Revenue split for eBooks is 70/30 publisher/Amazon. The Audiobook market has one player Audible.com owned by Amazon that also runs the audiobook section of the ITunes store. They have 90%+ Marketshare. Audible gives everyone a different deal but publishers get about 1/3 of the revenue and the free product they use to attract people to the platform comes out of publisher revenue.

Book publishers are deathly afraid that Amazon will take it's 75% eBook marketshare and beat down the revenue split. Only time will tell if Book publishers concerns are valid.

What you're describing isn't a walled garden or an ecosystem. Amazon is selling a product but there's no consumer lock-in. I can buy music, movies, or ebooks on Amazon and put them on an iPad, a Kindle, or my computer using common software. They may have a dangerous hold on the market because of their size but that's more like a monopoly than a walled garden.

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