Slashdot Mirror
The Price of Amazon
An anonymous reader writes "As physical book stores continue to struggle and disappear, the NY Times puts the changing book industry into perspective as a cost of the existence of Amazon. Further, it's a cost that hasn't been fully paid, as other effects of Amazon's ascendancy have yet to be felt. Quoting: 'One consequence of this shift is that soon no one will know what a book's "real" price is. Price will be determined by demand and perhaps by whim. The first seeds of this can be seen in the Justice Department's suit against the leading publishers, who felt that Amazon was pricing their e-books so low that it threatened their viability. The government accused the publishers of colluding to raise prices in an anti-consumer move. Amazon was not a party to the case, but it emerged the big winner.' Economists, publishers, and readers no longer have confidence that a book will cost the same amount this week as it did the last."
A Kindle book is a rental that you pay buyer prices for. In many cases, Kindle books are more expensive than paper books, sometimes ridiculously so. Yet, you cannot do any of the things with a Kindle book than you can with a regular book: you cannot lend to as many people as you'd like; you cannot keep a personal backup copy; you cannot resell it; you cannot read it on anything other than a Kindle.
The story for Amazon MP3s is nearly as bad, with one saving grace: they give you a physical copy of the file, so you can back it up and play it on any device you want. The terms of use, however, legally forbid virtually all of the uses you would be entitled to if you bought the physical CD: you can't lend it, or sell it, or donate it.
These are bad deals for the consumer. They are charging us as much as they used to, yet not offering anything like the same terms. Personally, I am willing to purchase an MP3 through Amazon, but I refuse to buy a Kindle book until I have at least a downloadable copy I can play on any device I own.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday