Friday, May 23, 2014
Kevin Drum — Amazon's War Against Book Publishers Goes Into Nuclear Territory
This is so technologically naive as to be embarrassing.
Secondly, ecommerce is tremendously competitive and Amazon may be the gorilla in the room now but the game is far from over.
Jeff Bezos is "psychopathically competitive," according to Drum. So were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs when computers were the hot new product. So were Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller. So were the Rothschilds. Etc. That's capitalism. So is politics. So is war. That's life at the present level of collective consciousness.
Technology has the potential to change that drastically through decentralization and niche markets that serve specialized needs and targeted wants. Amazon doesn't have a lock on either tablets or e-readers. Moreover, Amazon is locked in competition with Apple Store on one hand, and on the other, there are independent venues like Smashwords.
Mother Jones
Amazon's War Against Book Publishers Goes Into Nuclear Territory
Kevin Drum
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3 comments:
It's almost like Bezos is virtually begging the federal government to step in, break them up and put him out of his monopolistic misery. When the gorilla of retail book content begins suppressing content it doesn't like, we're in big trouble.
Don't forget that Bezos now owns the Washington Post. Speculation is that he bought it not as a moneymaker or even a trophy but as a political tool.
"Jeff Bezos is "psychopathically competitive," according to Drum. So were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs when computers were the hot new product. So were Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller. So were the Rothschilds. Etc. That's capitalism. So is politics. So is war. That's life at the present level of collective consciousness."
I can't speak about these individuals, but extreme competitiveness need not be pathological. (Not that homo economicus is not a sociopath.) In the 18th century Jay Gould was one of many unscrupulous tycoons. Commodore Vanderbilt was ruthlessly competitive, but, unlike Gould and others, his word was his bond.
Times and values change. In the 1960s psychological research indicated that business leaders, contrary to the stereotype, were more ethical than average. Today Harvard MBAs believe that it is their duty as a corporate executive to break the law.
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