Monopoly v/s Cartel

As the Amazon v/s Hachette (one of the Big Publishers) war heated up, a non-Hachette author, John Green, worried if this was a sign of how Amazon was going to start abusing its monopolistic power:
“What's ultimately at stake is whether Amazon is going to be able to freely and permanently bully publishers into eventual nonexistence.”
(If you are wondering, Amazon increased the delivery time of all Hachette books. And some Hachette books stopped showing up altogether in Amazon search).

So is Amazon the bad guy? Well, it certainly isn’t the only bad guy. Hachette was part of the cartel that worked with Apple to artificially keep e-book prices high. This wasn’t just an accusation; the publishers settled matters in a US court in 2013, albeit without admitting guilt.

The court ordered all those publishers to re-negotiate e-book prices with everyone, including Apple and Amazon. And it is as part of those negotiations that the war has started. Amazon says the issue isn’t about revenue sharing; rather, it’s because Amazon wants most e-books to be sold for less than $9.99:
“With an ebook, there's no printing, no over-printing, no need to forecast, no returns, no lost sales due to out-of-stock, no warehousing costs, no transportation costs, and there is no secondary market — e-books cannot be resold as used books. Ebooks can be and should be less expensive.”
Besides, says Amazon, lower prices would increase sales and result in more revenue for all parties. Everybody wins, or at least that’s Amazon’s version.

Amazon is so disliked by Big Publishers because it is, well, a disruptor. As Hugh C. Howey says:
“First with the stocking and discounting of practically every book in print, then with an online sales platform that employs customer reviews, shopping habits, and big data to provide algorithmic recommendations. More recently it has been with the release of the Kindle and the KDP self-publishing platform.”
Big Publishers, an industry that fought the Internet revolution tooth and nail, resents Amazon, a company that switched from just delivering physical books to the digital books arena successfully. Howey again:
“It’s the companies who control their obsolescence who thrive. Apple is such a company. Eastman Kodak is of the other sort.”

Oh yeah, there’s the monopoly issue with Amazon. Then again, Big Publishers have always acted as a cartel. Tell me again: why is a cartel better than a monopoly? Between the two evils, I’d pick the one that gives me (the reader) a better deal. And that lesser evil is Amazon, a company that gets you the book you want on time without stepping out of your door or worrying if the store next door even has the book. And as the Hachette war shows, Amazon even wants to bring down e-book prices. If that’s not better than Big Publishers, what is?

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