Main Area and Open Discussion > Living Room
Let's face it: the ebook market is FUBAR, thanks to pure greed
Paul Keith:
That's why the e-book market is getting such a topic though.
Lots of self-marketers are already hyping how e-books would make the game a little bit fairer.
It's not so much absent as lots of people are waiting for that reality to happen and some have already took to ignoring the format wars in the hopes of riding the bandwagon of cheap e-books.
What's really absent is how piracy matters in that discussion seeing as pirated books has often reached a higher status of exposure when combined with word of mouth twitter trends than e-book readers really have of exposing that one "must buy for e-book reader" book. Again my 2 cents.
40hz:
It's not so much absent as lots of people are waiting for that reality to happen and some have already took to ignoring the format wars in the hopes of riding the bandwagon of cheap e-books.
-Paul Keith (February 07, 2011, 11:02 AM)
--- End quote ---
And that's despite the publishers and ebook manufacturers making it abundantly clear they have no intention of seriously reducing their "cover" prices for ebooks?
Paul Keith:
Well, I'm mostly referring to awhile back. Way way awhile back.
If I'm not mistaken, there was a stint when Kindle books were really cheap and it was like bundle buying.
That didn't last long though but not a lot of people know that.
johnk:
If you believe in the market, the ebook price business will eventually sort itself out. If publishers collude with sellers, it will be declared unlawful. If publishers operate a cartel, it will be found out. Competition has brought us inexpensive print books (certainly in the UK), the same will happen with ebooks. Eventually.
There is of course a bigger issue here related to the topic in another thread where Apple are trying to hang on to Amazon's coat-tails and pocket 30% while they're at it. This goes back to an often-discussed topic here -- the closed OS.
Apple's iOS takes the notion of a closed OS to a new level -- the "economy" of the OS is locked and controlled. This is really dangerous. Closed economic systems are a barrier to progress and efficient markets and they distort competition and discourage innovation.
Paul Keith:
If you believe in the market, the ebook price business will eventually sort itself out. If publishers collude with sellers, it will be declared unlawful. If publishers operate a cartel, it will be found out. Competition has brought us inexpensive print books (certainly in the UK), the same will happen with ebooks. Eventually.
--- End quote ---
Of course this only assumes those who believe in the market also believe that we exist in a free market... (with no government bail-outs/global plans to censor the internet/intentional worsening of depressions to temporary stave off a more noticeable recession...)
...err yeah, I know you added the Apple situation already but I just can't consider that the bigger issue in light of other err...bigger issues.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version