How can Amazon bully publishers? In the wake of Jeff Bezos’s POD power grab, here are four ways listed by Andrew Savikas of O’Reilly Media—a publishing tech expert and general manager of O’Reilly’s Tools of Change conference. Would the International Digital Publishing Forum and the Association of American Publishers kindly take notice?
All four ways would apply to one extent or another to e-book publishers—if not now, then in the future—and consumers, too, could suffer. Okay, here are the four:
1. “Data-driven lock-in”—for example, reader reviews. As Andrew notes, that can be good for end users. I’ll not quarrel with that. In fact, while I’m not an Amazon affiliate, I regularly link to Amazon pages because the interests of my readers come first. I’ll not play games. Credit where credit’s due!
2. “Format lock-in.” eBabel territory! Actually this would apply especially to e-books, as shown by Amazon’s refusal to let the Kindle render the IDPF .epub standard natively. Publishers may not get excited, until, as, as Andew notes, this “leads to…
3. “Pricing power lock-in. Just as Apple reset the price of music (Wal-Mart just got the memo), Amazon is resetting the price of a book.” That could hurt even consumers in the long run if it diminishes the number of competing retailers. Among other things, Andrew warns against The Walmart Effect.
4. “Channel lock-in. ” Want to sell a POD book on Amazon? Then you need to let Jeff and friends print it. This is just as obnoxious as Amazon’s eBabel.
“Channel lock-in” is the worst, and the ultimate expression of the rest. First you serve the customers’ needs, and do it better than your competitors, even sacrificing profitability, until you reach monopoly-mass. Then you turn on the screws (such as channel lock-in).
The more I think about what Amazon has been doing, the more I fear it. There is not, nor will there be, any American legal recourse available. We authors and readers and publishers must act on our own. And the best time to make Amazon back off such predatory practices is now, while they are small and hesitant, and before the Kindle is manufactured in such quantities that it becomes the iPod of ebook devices.
We can hope that the top brass at Amazon will see reason, and retreat from these monopolistic practices. Since they have tried to sneak this form of channel lock-in over on us, we can conclude that they are themselves aware of how evil and unpopular it is. That indicates they might retreat, if the outcry is loud enough.
pond, I don’t understand. You seem to be saying that it is a monopolistic practice to serve your customers better than competitors do.
So … what would be the proper reaction to this strategy? Demand poor service and high prices?
Bryan, I’ll let pond clarify what he meant, but I certainly didn’t interpret what he said the way you did.