Benevolent (Shopping) Dictator?

Four a.m. and awake despite heavy eyelids and the desire to sink into my mattress, but I wrestled sleep down, held it at bay to finish the last few pages of The Hunger Games. And when I found myself at the end, I was no more sated than the few pages before because there I was, dangling on a cliff…or rather a cliffhanger. There was not neat packaging of the characters for me to file away as happy or sad or tormented or anything in particular. I wasn’t looking for a particular kind of an ending but I was looking for an ending.

But The Hunger Games is a trilogy and that was simply part one and so there I was, awake enough to wonder “what next?”. Ten years ago, hell, five years ago and I’d have had to wait. In the morning I’d have trotted out to the library to see if they had a copy lurking in the shelves or gone to the closest bookstore and purchased a tangible copy. But the gift of a Kindle and the ever available internet convenienced the patience right out of me. 

Instead of settling in for a few hours of sleep and time enough to conjure up my own scenarios for what happens next, I instead grabbed my phone and went to Amazon and downloaded the next instillation. And before I had exited the browser the book appeared on my Kindle and my eyes burned with fatigue as I read on.

I share that to put into context what I’ll say next. 

Amazon is big and we, the reading and buying public (not to mention writers) are in a precarious position.

In recent weeks Amazon and Hachette Publishing have been in a very public feud. It is easy to get caught up in the largeness of the story and immediately apply archetypal characteristics to each in order to understand what is going on. But in this news story there is no “little guy”, at least not in this particular fray. Amazon has become the megastore of megastores but Hachett isn’t a little startup or indie operation either. These are both big companies with specific aims and interests.

So why care? Stephen Colbert, among others, has weighed in on the dispute about the undisclosed demands of Amazon on Hachette, Hachette’s refusal to acquiesce, and Amazon’s subsequent delay in the shipping of Hachette books, deliberate counter-marketing of their books when people seek them out, and raised prices.

Insert deep sigh here because Amazon, a website that makes my life - as someone who hates to shop - so much easier, is essentially proving itself to be the online version of Wal-Mart. 

Great, one more thing I might slip up and my give business to in a moment of desperation and then feel guilty about. Did I mention deep sigh?

The thing is, I see how this gets dangerous. Or at least how it could. 

I sent a friend this Ney York Time’s piece knowing all the while what his response to the notion that although there is a need for old school publishers to adapt or die, an Amazon unchecked by competition could be problematic even in the areas that they currently shine. My friend disagreed:

I don’t see a problem with Amazon dominating the industry. If there is a competitor who can provide a better end user experience for the consumer…then the market would react accordingly. That entity doesn’t exist and Bezos/Amazon’s success was hard won…they have earned the right to dominate. 

In theory I agree with him. In theory I believe that markets correct themselves. But that is theory and theory happens in a vacuum, something Amazon does not exist in. and so a hundreds of things impact Amazon’s ability to dominate and what that domination could mean long term. 

Right now, Amazon treats its authors well. Right now it provides incentives that lure them away from traditional publishers and line their pockets with cash. The writer in me is drooling just a bit wondering how I can get my name in an Amazon cue. But even my greedy would-be-artist senses see the similarities to this method of reeling people in and say…drug dealers. At least all the drug dealers I saw on tv growing up. You know the ones, “sure, have a joint/rock/whatever; enjoy yourself.” And then when you are good and hooked, all of a sudden there is a price to be paid.

The difference here, of course, is that high on publishing royalties (so to speak) and all of the other publishers pushed out of business, if Amazon doesn’t want to pay me anymore than what recourse is there?

It is an imperfect metaphor, sue me. You get the point though.

Sure, people are smart and in theory, someone will enter the fray and provide a supply in that aching chasm of demand (for a platform to publish and purchase books that allows decent pay and decent prices) but still…we aren’t in a vacuum. And then my mind wanders to our government’s seeming unwillingness to enforce antitrust laws and some emerging (seemingly unrelated but so very related) issues like net neutrality and I wonder how successful emergent competition could be.

I think competition is a good thing. I think it pushes innovation. 

Competition (and technology) produced the ebook and made it possible for me to sit in my underwear and access almost any book I want at any time I want it. And I appreciate the addition to the market and do not mourn for traditional publishers because it is impacting their business model. They need to adapt. 

My cousin urged me to frequent local independent bookstores because they are slowly dying out. And she’s right. But token purchases won’t save them. People nostalgic for the telegraph couldn’t save it in competition with the phone; new technology and a new business model established itself and brought us here. This may sound like I am arguing the counterpoint but I’m not. Extinction by unnatural forces – acting quickly and without balance – wreak havoc. Living things have no time to adjust and instead are wiped out. Think what the stoats did to the kiwi in New Zealand, the nutria to the wetlands of Louisiana, and humans pretty much anywhere. Adaptation is as necessary for businesses as it is plant and animal life. 

Or better, think of the one crop nations that collapse when the prices fall. The West Indies with sugar, South America with bananas, West Africa with cocoa. No one seemed to mind there was one market and once source until that one source decided prices were too high. Crisis is never a good time to negotiate especially when there is so little leverage. 

I’m not sure how to ameliorate this situation. Thigh high in Amazon if only through my kindle (never mind the abundant shopping items), I’ve cut down greatly but I’m not sure where the alternative is just yet; but I’m looking. I can’t complain about the beast all the while feeding it.