This seems disingenuous to me. First, on the 1984 scandel he cites, Amazon has apologized, sworn they will never do it again, refunded customers money and given customers new copies of the book. Give them a break already.
On the "Gay-Rank" scandal they claimed it was a bug and they fixed the bug within a single business day. He claims that's not enough because "it shows that they've created a frighteningly efficient machine for imposing ideological censorship, should they choose to do so". But here's my question: How could they have a ranking system and not create the possibility of censorship? It's impossible (and the ranking system helps far more people than its ever hurt).
After making those claims he goes on to fabricate a sinister reason as to why Amazon doesn't have a Kindle UK store yet (based on no evidence as far as I can tell)
So he basically believes Amazon has sinister objectives no matter what they say or what actions they take and based on that he believes Kindle in the UK is a bad thing. The one thing he is right about is DRM but Apple kind of proved that sometimes you have to give publishers their DRM in order to convince them that they don't need it.
> First, on the 1984 scandel he cites, Amazon has apologized, sworn they will never do it again, refunded customers money and given customers new copies of the book. Give them a break already.
Has Amazon taken any steps to remove the feature of the Kindle software that let them do this in the first place? I don't think so. Thus, I am rather disinclined to "give them a break".
To use an analogy: a criminal obtains the key to my house. One night he sneaks in and steals some stuff. I'm upset, of course. But then he apologizes, returns the stuff, and even gives me a few gifts. However, he keeps my house key. Am I happy? (BTW, yes, I know that what Amazon did is not illegal. But it is certainly lousy enough to keep me from ever buying a Kindle.)
Unless someone wants to explain to me why being able to muck about with a customer's computer, behind the customer's back, is a Good Thing (?).
The analogy is more like: you gave a delivery company the key to your house and agreed with them they could come take back whatever they delivered to you whenever they wanted to. And then when they did, you got ticked off because you didn't think they ever actually would, or something. And then they apologized, and you didn't take your key back.
Nobody's forcing anyone to buy a Kindle. The DRM and this ability they're retaining is one of the big reasons I don't have one yet (though I have to admit, I'm probably not going to hold out much longer).
> The analogy is more like: you gave a delivery company the key to your house ....
Yes, that's closer. But closer yet would be that we're developing a new kind of housing, which cannot be bought without signing a contract that says the selling company gets a copy of your key. The problem is when this kind of thing gets on the accepted list of "standard business practices", and then people stop noticing that it's a bad idea.
> And then they apologized, and you didn't take your key back.
True, but keep in mind that, to do that, I would have to return the house.
I agree that Amazon has not broken their word on anything. They do not seem to have broken any laws. What they can and cannot do is part of the deal.
However, it is a bad deal. I am not treating Amazon like a company that is not doing what they said they'll do. Rather I am treating them like a company that sells a seriously inferior product. Because the contract is part of that product, and the contract is not good.
I make literally five times as much money in royalties per $24 hardcover as I do per $8 paperback. I'd like to be able to make that money off $10 ebooks via Amazon, but my publishers (and their contracts departments) aren't set up that way; we're locked in place with legal boilerplate written years ago.
Ah, there's the rub. The author's current model, as negotiated by the publisher, has them cutting into margins for ebooks. Is that amazon's problem? I would think that if the author redefined the model through renegotiation or cutting out the publisher altogether, the attitude would change.
I think you are taking these quotes out of context. Charles Stross (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross) is a writer and the books he is linking to are written by him. He uses the affiliate fees (maybe $250 a year) to help defray the hosting costs of his blog. The affiliate fee issue is only of a small part of his argument against Amazon's business model.
Personally, I think that $9.99 is a fair price to pay for a DRM-encumbered ebook. There should be enough in that amount to pay the author, the publisher, and the retailer, especially given that they should get a larger volume with the lower price-point. Unfortunately, it looks like the allocations between the three parties are way out of wack.
Some data. Here's Amazon's US & UK affiliate compensation charts. In the US, 10% on Kindle purchases, one of their higher payouts. I assume the UK program will offer specific Kindle payouts soon now that the Kindle is going international.
And because I was downmodded for that, here it is...
> So, to summarize: what have I got against Amazon's Kindle?
1) DRM. (It's unethical, immoral, fattening, and a royal pain in the ass. To be fair: this also goes for other ebook platforms.)
2) Amazon reserves the right to delete work from your Kindle. (Under circumstances which are now a little clearer and a little tighter, but nevertheless still present.)
3) Censorship.
4) They're using their monopsony position to fuck over their suppliers (i.e. the publishers) in a manner that threatens a catastrophic crash in author royalties in the medium term (up to 5 years). NB: as a reader, you may enjoy the short term price benefit, but you'll pay for it in the long term in reduction of choice.
5) Their actions may start a trans-Atlantic price war between publishers, to the detriment of authors (again, in the medium term).
> 4) They're using their monopsony position to fuck over their suppliers (i.e. the publishers) in a manner that threatens a catastrophic crash in author royalties in the medium term (up to 5 years). NB: as a reader, you may enjoy the short term price benefit, but you'll pay for it in the long term in reduction of choice.
This is all based on conjecture, and it turns out to be bullshit.
Stross just asserts, with no data, that
(a) Amazon is a monopsony (Amazon sells $5 billion of books per year, out of a $13 billion ecommerce book market, out of a $30-40 billion total book market).
(b) the discounted price of ebooks comes from the publisher. In fact Slate (or maybe it was The Atlantic?) had an article within the last month about how Amazon is paying THE SAME AMOUNT for ebooks as for hardovers, and Amazon is actually losing money on each kindle book sale, but is doing so to build mindshare.
I like half or so of Stross' fiction, but his conspiratorial ranting annoys the piss out of me.
(a) Amazon is a monopsony (Amazon sells $5 billion of books per year, out of a $13 billion ecommerce book market, out of a $30-40 billion total book market).
If you want to sell ebooks right now, the only way to do it (and actually get significant sales) is through the Kindle, isn't it? Lots of publishers with only one viable reseller - sounds like a monopsony to me. The question isn't if they are one, it's if they're abusing their position as one. I'm not convinced by this article that they are, but the potential is certainly there as the popularity of the Kindle goes up.
DISCLAIMER: I haven't worked at Amazon for some time now.
The author makes a number of unsourced assumptions about the business models involved, as well as his moral rights. You'll have to decide for yourself if those are correct:
"The US Kindle store caps book prices at $9.99 even for hardcovers that normally have a retail price of $23.95 and which would typically cost $16 in dead tree format via Amazon. Amazon gets the books at this price by taking the publishers for a huge [...] discount"
That is a fact, is it? Publishers happily sell their books for much less money so they become Kindle bestsellers, thereby undermining their traditional distribution models and pissing off every bookstore? REALLY?
"and by saying "screw you" to the small fry like me, who are looking for our points on the referral scheme"
Because Amazon has given you a few % off sales coming from your links, you have the moral right to extend this scheme to all future ways in which Amazon will ever sell anything? How is that a "screw you" in any way?
"One nasty suspicion of mine is that Amazon were demanding discounts so ludicrous that publishers would be making a net loss on each book sold after expenses and royalties"
Publishers are just lining up to make heavy losses so they can sell electronic content, i.e. they are just desperate to subsidize Amazon's ebook reader? Think this through for a minute.
"what have I got against Amazon's Kindle?
1) DRM. (It's unethical, immoral, fattening, and a royal pain in the ass"
That's strange, since most of the complains seem to be about the cut from referral fees he's not making anymore. A point that, coincidentally, doesn't appear anywhere in the conclusion anymore.
"4) They're using their monopsony position to fuck over their suppliers (i.e. the publishers) "
You'd think someone from a publisher (horribly leak-happy companies, the lot of them) would've let something on by now. Strange how nobody's done so.
I wonder how the publishers failed to see Amazon as a monopsony threat before, or if they did, why did they not develop their own ebook sales channels. Several times in the past years I wanted to buy a pdf of various books and could never find it online.
I suspect that book publishers introducing their own digital distribution mechanism would not make the traditional book distributors (e.g. Ingram) very happy, and you don't want a major channel partner getting angry with you.
Because Amazon merely is a competing distributor, rather than a publisher/vendor trying to go vertical, distributors have less leverage.
That's a weird way to ask it. iTunes has competitors, after all. Just today I bought a slew of mp3s from the Amazon store, because they offer incredible deals.
If you mean will Amazon become the majority store, the answer is that they will be unless something better comes up. Isn't that how it always is?
On the "Gay-Rank" scandal they claimed it was a bug and they fixed the bug within a single business day. He claims that's not enough because "it shows that they've created a frighteningly efficient machine for imposing ideological censorship, should they choose to do so". But here's my question: How could they have a ranking system and not create the possibility of censorship? It's impossible (and the ranking system helps far more people than its ever hurt).
Oh, and does Amazon cap the price of books at $9.99 (http://www.amazon.com/CSS-The-Missing-Manual-ebook/dp/B0026O...)?
After making those claims he goes on to fabricate a sinister reason as to why Amazon doesn't have a Kindle UK store yet (based on no evidence as far as I can tell)
So he basically believes Amazon has sinister objectives no matter what they say or what actions they take and based on that he believes Kindle in the UK is a bad thing. The one thing he is right about is DRM but Apple kind of proved that sometimes you have to give publishers their DRM in order to convince them that they don't need it.