[Chris Kenny] "Apple offered to take a substantially smaller cut than Amazon was taking and let publishers set their own prices. Did publishers turn around and say "Great! Now that we're getting 70% instead of 30-40%, we can lower prices"? They did not. They raised prices. "
And we have Apple to thank for it. They very explicitly conspired with publishers to raise prices. This isn't some shadow theory. I've read the emails and with a quick Google search, you can too. Raising prices was Steve's explicit goal from the beginning. Again, not a shadow theory. He said so. That part is public even outside the DoJ's filing. Look it up.
The fact is that they had a number of paths to choose, and chose one based on collusion between competitors to fix prices that were higher than previous market standards, with punishment for those who deviated from the plan.
Sure, Apple didn't have the upper hand for once, and tried to play a different game than the market leader was playing. Why not? It has worked for them before. Not this time.
The irony is that once this ridiculous arrangement is undone, I think Apple's book fortunes are potentially limitless. If I was Amazon, I'd be praying that Apple tries to stay the course.
Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou
