Who were working together, a scenario covered under the Anti-Trust act.

Amazon has maybe a third of book sales. (2012 figure showed them at 27%) That means an overwhelming majority of book sales are not sold by Amazon - no monopoly.

Since Amazon is not colluding with its competitors in these news, there's no trust (multiple companies working together to create a "monopoly"), either.

You offered a scenario of low supply, high margins, and low prices as if they came together. An artificially low supply can increase margins, but it's not going to reduce price - the price may absolutely be low, but it's going to be relatively higher than it could have been if the supply was artificially restricted.

Hachette still has the same number of authors and publishing equipment. "Permanently lower supply" may happen in the future, but you can't lay the blame on Amazon. It's the publisher's job to supply demand; Amazon is a customer of Hachette. (They pay money for goods)

You keep using that word monopoly. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Is that why its believers fail to understand the nature of their own belief?

Because I find it highly amusing to get an argument that boils down to, "I believe I have no beliefs!"

Faith is belief in something not yet proven, but "without evidence" is going too far.

Do you think the law of physics will behave the same tomorrow?

You suggested that Amazon having a "monopoly" on their own store means that they are legally a monopoly. My reference to "legal standards" was to your interpretation of the law - and I was pointing out how every business is a monopoly by your nonsensical interpretation of the law.

"IBM was ruled to have created a monopoly via its 1956 patent-sharing agreement with Sperry-Rand," (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM)

"Sperry Rand had tried to monopolize the electronic data processing industry" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_v._Sperry_Rand)

IBM was convicted of being a monopoly by trying to become the sole company in control of a certain market. (by controlling a certain patent, which grants a legal monopoly on an invention)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft

"Microsoft's dominance of the x86-based personal computer operating systems market constituted a monopoly, and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly"

For MS, they attempted to monopolize their industry by attacking competitors, so they tried to become the sole supplier for their market.

Look at the plain definition of the word:

1.control of market supply: a situation in which one company controls an industry or is the only provider of a product or service

To assert that single supplier has nothing to do with monopoly is to throw away language entirely.

Now what market does Amazon monopolize? Book sales? When there's so many different sale channels for said books?

Your failure to comprehend basic economics is showing.

Lower supply increases prices.

Lower prices reduce margins.

High margins are high profit, which draws competition, unlike your imaginary universe. ("Aw man, they're making high profits, let's forget competing in that market")

Illegal like copyright and patents? Heh. You don't seem to realize that the only monopolies that do exist, exist by government intervention.

By this legal standard you have just offered, every business is in violation of this law.

If I walk into a Barnes and Nobles and demand they sell me car tires and they refuse, they have made it "impossible" for me to acquire the product I want, "restraining commerce".

Any time a company tries to discontinue a product, they have made it "impossible" for me to acquire something I used to be able to - thus violating your ridiculous interpretation of the Sherman Anti-Trust act. Clearly no one is ever allowed to stop manufacturing/sellling anything, or they'd "restrict" consumer choice.

But why stop there? If they're selling something for more than I'd like to pay for it, clearly they are restricting my options as well! Anyone who doesn't sell me everything I want for $0.01 is also in violation!

Now that we've put the ridiculous interpretations aside - Amazon does not occupy 100% of an inter-state trade, on any good. They are limited by their business model to online retail; so that leaves mail-order, retail, and any other sale channels as competition. Seeing how Amazon has not to my knowledge attempted to block Hachette from selling books through other channels - they have not attempted to monopolize Hachette's products.

Logical fail. Monopoly: Single seller.

Number of online sellers of books > 1. Thus, Amazon is not a monopoly. They do have a major market share, so they have the potential to "abuse market power" (which is very subjective), but they are not a monopoly in any meaningful sense of the word - there just isn't any mechanism for it - unless Congress passes a law forcing all online sales in the US to go through Amazon.

I'm guessing you decided to skip the IANAL disclaimer, because your legal argument is crap, and you clearly have no business judging the legal side of this issue, never mind the economic side of things. (Hint: Even if you did show that Amazon acted illegally, you haven't shown that it has economically harmed consumers)

You're only looking at this in terms of the existing reader market.

At a lower price per book, it is easier for new readers to try out a series and see if they like it. There will be more people reading books - and perhaps making a lifelong hobby of it, as well as telling their friends about the books they enjoyed.

Wrong. Higher profits, not prices, attract higher quality authors. That's how you get them to quit their day job to focus on writing.

Profits are not based solely on margin per book (price), but margin per book times total books sold.

Reducing the publisher's cut increases the margin per book. Reducing the price to the consumer increases the number of books sold.

It's hard to predict the future, and certainly the publishers add some value to their products, but self-publishing is not going to kill the book industry.

You do think it's bad. I'm pointing out that the bad doesn't make sense.

Why do you think higher prices would have saved them?

Higher prices mean a higher barrier to entry to the hobby - which isn't going to help it grow or stay alive.

If only there was some way for people to share about books they like.

Maybe they could write a blurb on what they liked or disliked, and assign a satisfaction value to their purchase on a 5 point scale.

Alas, this wouldn't be a problem if only books were more expensive.

If consumers are buying $1 books instead of $11 books, in quantities to move the market in that direction, there is more profit to be made, not less. That's not even accounting for the change in the market size as the hobby becomes more accessible.

Publishers currently take a large chunk of book sale revenues away from authors. A larger share of a larger pie is going to make it easier for authors to make money.

Amazon refusing to sell one particular business's product is not a meaningful reduction in consumer choice. Amazon is not the sole seller of books, or of books online. They have no "effective monopoly" outside of their own Amazon marketplace - and even then others can compete against Amazon, by selling products on Amazon.

Wiki blurb on Anti-Trust Act: "Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony [. . . ]"[13]

So has Amazon monopolized book sales? No, there are still retail bookstores who can continue to sell the books.

Is Amazon trying to monopolize online book sales? Not particularly - other competitors exist, and they're not trying to force a publisher to only sell through them. They are trying to get a better contract, but that's normal business negotiation.

The only way you can call Amazon a monopoly is by using a nonsensical definition that does not fall under the language of this act. (Hint: If your definition makes every business a monopoly, your use of the word monopoly becomes useless)

When Amazon isn't allowed to negotiate what it sells in its own online store, you've effectively taken over ownership of Amazon. Who are you giving that ownership to, and what are you planning to do to compensate Amazon's owners?

Do you know the publisher in question was accused of being a part of a price-fixing cartel with Apple? They were trying to keep book prices high, and they don't have the "legal right to do that".

Now I learn that if Amazon wants to make book pricers lower, they don't have the "legal right to do that", either.

What purpose are these laws serving?

The publishers don't have a right to exist as they currently are. Book publishing has changed and their model built when book publishing had high upfront costs doesn't work so well in an age where you can toss an ebook on the internet for practically nothing.

That's not a monopoly. Every single one of those customers have the ability to choose any other Internet retailer. It's as simple as typing a new address in the browser. What is Amazon going to do, hijack their computer with a script?

There's market power there, but that's legitimately earned.

In summary: you want to veto the choice of consumers for cheaper goods, so that publishers can sell them books for a higher price.

Because if you didn't do this, then Amazon would use their market power to sell consumers cheaper books, which is harmful.

Expensive books protect consumers. Um, yay?

"Lowest cost seller of everything" is not a monopoly. Monopolies involve markets for specific goods. A monopoly on "everything" is impossible, because of the sheer number of goods and methods of distribution involved. If a company can figure out how to do that without use of government force - they deserve to be the "monopoly".

You also completely missed the point - which was that this so-called monopoly scenario ends up providing the lowest cost goods to the customers - maximizing value to them.

/facepalm

1. Amazon is not a monopolist.

2. Amazon doesn't own the Internet.

3. The only "monopoly" Amazon has is the right to sell things on Amazon. You seem to be suggesting that everyone has a right to sell things on Amazon on their own terms, and that Amazon isn't allowed to negotiated the terms of that business contract.

So did buggy whip manufacturers. That's not evidence of a problem or a monopoly situation. Think, for crying out loud.

A free market is not "status quo forever".

Why did they go after a different market in the first place? Profit margins. What does that tell you about the profit margins of scaled down EVs?

It also increases costs, because you're starting from scratch and testing new methods/configurations. Care to break down the fixed and marginal costs of the two choices?

Monopoly is not defined as "power to `hurt' customers" or "customer faces a reduced number of choices", so all the rest of your post is a red herring.

Hachette books does not have an innate right to use Amazon to sell their wares. If they don't like the level of service provided by Amazon, Amazon can do NOTHING to stop Hachette from creating an online store for their readers and shipping books by their choice of USPS, UPS, or FedEx. They could even sell their readers ebooks and not deal with the logistics of killing trees and moving them around.

Or if that's too much work for Hachette, there a myriad of other online retailers who will gladly work with them to sell their wares.

The very idea of "muscling" in the online realm is ridiculous. Amazon can take their ball and go home but they can't force anyone else to use their ball.

Humans aren't bacteria.

You seem to have this silly idea that finite resources will suddenly catastrophically run out - to the complete surprise of the people who have the most to profit from maintaining a regular supply of said resources.

Your scenario requires these foolish suppliers to fail to notice that they're running out of the very resources they're selling - and thus selling at a price/quantity in a way that fuels constant/growing demand (which is non-optimal for profit) - until a day comes when the natural resource tap suddenly switches off with no warning.

So in this scenario, they become lowest cost seller of everything? And this is harmful to customers, how?

If they decide they're a "monopoly" and jack up their prices - what do you think happens in the realm of online retail?

Let me get to the point. I don't think an "effective monopoly" is remotely possible in online sales, absent government intervention.

Is Amazon going to buy out all the search engines so people can't find cheaper retailers? How can Amazon jack up their prices, earn "monopoly profits", and keep competitors from popping up? If they continue to sell at cost to "kill" competitors, they're not harming customers.

Talking about "online tyrants" is ridiculous.