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Comment by mpweiher | Hacker News Reader

Boy, aren't we all glad the DOJ protected poor little Amazon from the evil and all-powerful Apple e-book conspiracy and monopoly.

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Two wrongs don't make a right.

I'll reserve judgement on whether Amazon's conduct is legal or not. But, Apple's collusion was decidedly illegal.

In any case if the DoJ feels that Amazon is misusing monopoly power, then the solution is to prosecute both and not, it'll all cancel out in the long run.

OK, so in this case, Amazon wants better terms than Hachette will give, so Amazon plays hardball.

In the e-book conspiracy, all the publishers wanted better terms than Amazon would give, and they didn't want to give Amazon the chance to play hardball, so they banded together and forced Amazon's hand.

Not really sure how the second is better. It's certainly way more illegal.

Assuming the first player has monopoly power (which its tactics wouldn't have any effect if it didn't) both are equally illegal.

You don't need a monopoly to have enough power to push around your suppliers.

You have to have monopoly power to do so by the tactics at issue (limiting consumer availability and manipulating retail prices) since in a market with effective competition that does more to direct sales of the product to competing retailers than to hurt the total volume sold by the publisher.

You just need more loyal customers. My first stop is Amazon. But I would not say I am loyal to Amazon above all else. If I really wanted something and they didn't have it, then I'd move on the next stop. In this case (that book about Amazon) I'd head on over to Barnes & Noble and pay just $0.31 more to order it there. No big deal.

The lawsuit had nothing to do with Amazon.

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