I'm not sure that 'as good as European cars' is really a selling point, when the car buying books I've been looking at recently mostly say 'don't buy European cars, they're crap'. Then again, that may be because they're made in Mexico.
More than the author is capable of on his own if he was willing to accept a $5,000 advance..
So, where are the TV ads for Joe Newbie's book? Where are the newspaper ads? Where are the billboards?
They're not there, because the publisher won't spend a cent advertising his book to readers, if they think it's only going to make $5,000.
Is it the case that the original publisher is also doing the e-book? I know sometimes authors retain rights to the e-book that the publisher doesn't get, and they may have chosen a bad e-book publishing model.
Most of the really badly fomatted ebooks I've seen come from trade publishers just OCR-ing the paper book and uploading it without further editing. I've seen a few badly formatted backlist ebooks from authors, but most take a lot more pride in their books than their publisher would.
Threaten to pull all movies from Amazon, create and promote a new partnership with (for example) Overstock.com or create their own direct distribution branch.
Ha-ha. You're funny.
If WB pull their movies off Amazon, I just stop buying WB movies. Few people are going to set up a separate account for every movie company, they just want to buy all their crap from one site with one account.
The only reservaton I have is the idea that one gigantic business is somehow going to treat me better than another gigantic business. Giant Douche versus Shit Sandwich comes to mind...
Except Amazon has great customer service, while Big Movie regards customers as an annoyance.
That might change, but, right now, I'll take Amazon over any big movie company any day.
While I agree in principle that publisher's are a bit superfluous to the publishing equation, acting solely as a middle man, you did leave out one major point regarding their value add. They provide substantial marketing muscle that it's not clear Amazon would provide to an individual author alone.
Sure, if you're Stephen King. Not if you're Joe Newbie who just sold them his new book for a $5,000 advance.
How much marketing do you think they're going to throw at a book if they're only willing to pay the author $5,000?
Duh. So it can sell that information to advertisers to serve targetted ads.
Yes, but that would help users block tracking and advertising, so it's a no-no.
The absurd permission demands from simple, crappy applications is why I'd love to see a real alternative to Android that doesn't cost Apple prices.
Remember "Love Canal"? This is what happens with no regulation, minimal regulation, or simply ignoring regulation.
You mean the waste dump the local government pushed the company to sell to them and then built a school on, after having been warned that it was, in fact, a waste dump?
Yes, if only government had been more involved in that debacle, it would clearly have been much better.
People that drive these cars only keep them a few years, depending on the length of the lease.
You do realize the car doesn't just disappear when it's returned at the end of the lease, right?
It's about as sensible as Columbus producing an 'Integrated America Plan' for how America would develop, or someone in the 50s producing an 'Integrated Computing Plan' for how computers would develop until 2050.
All we need is cheap access to space, and plain old unplanned, couldn't-give-a-crap-what-you-think humans will do the rest.
If your heat works, why do you need gloves?
You do realize that a car takes a while to heat up when the air is forty below zero, right? And that you don't want to get frostbite from having to take gloves off to touch a screen to turn the heat on before it heats up?
I haven't figured out how I'm supposed to use a touch-screen in my car when it's forty below zero and I'm wearning thick gloves.
6:35 a.m. Like 17 million other Americans, you have asthma. But as you get out of bed you notice that you are breathing freely this morning. This is thanks in part to government clean air laws that reduce the air pollution that would otherwise greatly worsen your condition.
Except asthma has been increasing while air pollution decreased. Personally, I suspect it's much due to government regulations which reduce ventilation of housing in the name of 'energy efficiency'.
It takes a genuinely insane person to make such a claim.
No, just someone who knows what they're talking about.
Somalia may be a crap-hole, but it's usually been less of a crap-hole than neighbouring parts of Africa which have governments.
I think there's a world market for about five computers. -- attr. Thomas J. Watson (Chairman of the Board, IBM), 1943
