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 abo...