7 karma · joined June 17, 2011
I think patents are good for certain things but over all it slows inovation. I think we could be another 25 years farther down the road with technology if there where not so many bad patents out there.
I am not homeless but not able to land work and have been working in a different industry for 5 years but want to get back in to what I went to school for which is Computer Engineering.
Amazon then was forced to raise there prices if they wanted to get the same books that Apple got. So yes as the market has grown and there are more choices the prices have gone up. The publishing industry conspired with each other to get hire prices.
The price fixing talk did not start with Amazon. It started because when Apple joined the market the publishers where not going to give them the same deal that Amazon had forced on them. So I think Apple wanting to get a piece of the market worked with the publishers and they all set the same pricing. Now it happened so quickly that people think they fixed the price which I agree they did. Instead of each one working with apple to come up with there own pricing.
This whole price fixing thing came about when Amazon had 95% of the market share and was able to dictate the prices, since they where the only ones selling e-books in large amounts. Now that apple is in the market along with other people Amazon share is at about 55% so they have lost that ability to control the market.
I do think Apple and the book companies came together to set a hire price and force Amazon to follow suit or risk not having all the books that Apple would have.
I do not understand why the books have to cost that much. I agree with NathanKP in that they are just files and the cost to the publisher is almost nothing at all. I know they are wanting to make a profit but I think when you charge more then a paper book something is wrong.
Go all e-books with a lot less paper books and call yourself the greenest in the business. I find that a lot of companies are scared of change and I am not sure why. I see change as a great thing that can propel the world in to new and better technology.
I hope they get this out to market sooner rather then later.
This is the same thing for sports and even less make it to the big leagues and make the money that you see the stars make these days.
I have to agree that there needs to be a push to make computers and science more appealing to the younger generation. The more we can show that engineers and scientist are not labeled geeks the more we will get the younger generation test out the different fields.
There is a lot of people out there that don't want to think when it comes to software or hardware. They want something that works and is easy to use. With the size of both these company's I could easily see each taking about 40% of the market and leaving everyone else fighting for 10%.