Amazon’s Tactics Confirm Its Critics’ Worst Suspicions

What if you made an app, charged $5, and Google/Apple said we really insist you charge $3 or do such-and-such. You, who worked super-hard and believe the market will support your $5 price, decline, and then in turn Google/Apple take your app off the store.

I'm not implying publishers are saints or anything but this is just bullying, not sticking up for the customer.

Of the brands and styles of shoes that Walmart does choose carry, some they may promote by placing them on an end cap, and others can be hard to find, or even stuck in the stockroom and not displayed for customers.

Nobody thinks Walmart is being unfair. Walmart can choose what merchandise to carry and how to display it.

So what's different with Amazon? Is it their infinite shelf space? Is their industry dominance and market power?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789753

Of course, Amazon is not techincally the only store. But they are large enough to have substantial market power (and, indeed, the current dispute proves it: it would make no sense for Amazon to embargo a publisher if Amazon had no reason to believe this would do any harm to that publisher). You also need to take into consideration the prevailing trend in the market (power accruing to Amazon) and what this says this about how Amazon will behave in the future (use of power to benefit itself).

As much as I dislike publishers: replacing multiple old publishers with a single high-tech publisher does not seem likely to be a happy ending for either consumers or authors.

Problem is--the comments--aren't going to reflect this.

So, the issue is this becomes a corner case. By banishing all articles besides the first one, the comments get locked into a single worldview--one that is less informed.

Its sort of a catch-22 of actively moderating a #hot-topic