Apple Won't Carry eBook that Mentions Amazon

[Steerpike]

More bad business from Apple, who seems intent on become the top "evil corporation" in the tech industry (probably already are):

Apple won't carry an ebook because it mentions Amazon - Boing Boing

Holly Lisle, for those who don't know, is also a Fantasy writer with a good number of titles published since about the late 1980s.

 

[JCFarnham]

... Which is why I don't have, buy or intend to buy any Apple products.

As Holly says, it's all about Amazon sales. Sorry iFriends. Apple products may be user friendly and such, but .. yeah.

Shame. Apple really could be great, but there is a huge reason why Microsoft wins out more often than not.

 

[Steerpike]

I'm the same way, JC. I won't do business with Apple, either. I don't like their practices, the controls that lock down their products, or the fact that they charge a premium just to have a picture of a fruit on your device

I have used Linux primarily for the last decade or so, but I have to admit I'm kind of interested in the Microsoft Surface.

 

[Ankari]

Shame. Apple really could be great, but there is a huge reason why Microsoft wins out more often than not.

I'm with you. But this is more true with Google Android compared to both companies.

 

[Zophos]

Agree. Despise them and won't buy their stuff.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Disallowing the mention or images of a competitor in any type of supported content is a common business practice. I agree it may be a little short-sighted in this case.

I'd have to read the piece to give an honest opinion though. If Amazon does 90% of the E-book business and the book's content discusses Amazon publishing 90% of the time, or speaks to iBooks being inferior (in terms of volume possibilities, like 5% iBooks, 5% nook, 90% Amazon) then perhaps it is understandable why they wouldn't want to support this work. Why would they want to foster a notion that their service is of such little value?

There is no free speech ideal for a distributor to abide by, it's just business & marketing.

 

[Steerpike]

There is no free speech ideal for a distributor to abide by, it's just business & marketing.

It is still a bad practice. The guidelines should be content neutral, except I suppose for obscenity and material like that. Imagine if Amazon refused to sell any Apple product or any product that referred to Apple products. They'd get hit with a lawsuit in a hurry, I imagine.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Imagine if Amazon refused to sell any Apple product or any product that referred to Apple products. They'd get hit with a lawsuit in a hurry, I imagine.

On what grounds? A company or an individual has the right to sell & distribute the material they choose. They do not owe any other company, especially a competitor, marketing rights.

It is a free market after all.

 

[Steerpike]

On what grounds? A company or an individual has the right to sell & distribute the material they choose. They do not owe any other company, especially a competitor, marketing rights.

It is a free market after all.

Anti-trust. As much market share as Amazon has, if they decided to stop selling products of their chief competitor and any products referring to those products, I don't think it is hard to get from there to the anti-competitive effect. They'd probably lose.

Companies can't proceed in any way they like, which is why Apple and publishers are in the cross-hairs right now, Microsoft was in it years ago, and so on.

Imagine if Microsoft took that same position and said "Hey, we don't own our competitors anything, so we're going to ensure that only software made by Microsoft runs on Windows." They'd go down in flames in an anti-trust action

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

The anti-trust legislations arose from wealthy companies (originally robber barons) lowering their prices to take losses, in order to drive smaller competitors and upstarts out of business. I don't see how anti-trust statutes apply here.

As far as Microsoft would be concerned, if they wanted to restrict their platform they could certainly do so. It wouldn't be illegal. They wouldn't though because it would be a bad business choice. Consumers want their systems to use a broad variety of software. If you didn't build your platform to accept those designs and a competitor did, they may overtake your market leader position.

Now, if Bill Gates said "I've got enough capital to keep everything afloat for ten years without making a profit!" and then went out and sold the new windows software for $5 a copy just to make it impossible for other companies to survive (thereby ensuring MS is the only company left standing after 10 years and can then charge whatever the hell they want) now you've got anti-trust concerns.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer but this is my understanding of basic anti-trust laws.

 

[Steerpike]

@T.Allen.Smith:

I don't think that analysis is correct. If you remember the Microsoft anti-trust case, they were in trouble initially merely for deciding to bundle IE with Windows. As part of the settlement, they were forced to share their APIs with third party. If they closed their platform off to others, they'd not only be in a lot more trouble in terms of anti-trust, but I suppose they'd also be violating the settlement of their last anti-trust case.

Predatory pricing is not the only form of anti-competitive behavior addressed by anti-trust laws. This is a huge body of the law and you are focusing on one small aspect of it. Look, for example, at the famous anti-trust case against the Hollywood studios that eliminated block booking. Under that practice, theaters had to take multiple movies from the same studio as a block. If you wanted one, you had to take the others. Nothing to do with predatory pricing, but the U.S. Supreme Court made the practice illegal in a long-term anti-trust case.

Alcoa was busted up via anti-trust suits merely because of market share, even though there as no evidence it was harmful and in fact there was evidence it might be a good concentration of power.

There are plenty of other examples if we want to get into the nuts and bolts of anti-trust law, but the upshot is that predatory pricing (which is what you're talking about) is only one form of anti-competitive behavior addressed by anti-trust laws. They extend well beyond that. They extend to contractual limitations (any agreement that unreasonably restrains competition and affects interstate commerce is subject to anti-trust), tying arrangements among products, consolidations of power (such as through mergers and acquisitions and otherwise), maintenance of market power, and so on.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

I'm the same way, JC. I won't do business with Apple, either. I don't like their practices, the controls that lock down their products, or the fact that they charge a premium just to have a picture of a fruit on your device

I have used Linux primarily for the last decade or so, but I have to admit I'm kind of interested in the Microsoft Surface.

I'm not a fan of either MS or Apple. Linux forever!

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Valid points.

I still have trouble accepting the idea that a company would be forced to market the products or services of a competitor under the anti-trust laws. That is what this argument is truly focused on right? The author feels slighted because her book discusses Amazon and Apple doesn't want to give voice to their competitor.

Interesting debate though & like most legal issues it seems rather unclear.

 

[JCFarnham]

The Author in question was always going to paint a picture that favours her own interests. Not consciously perhaps, but still.

The thing that got her so riled up is how the ibook people said one thing, she complied and then they said something else entirely. Rightly so she felt slighted. "Why should I try to play the game if they're going to keep batting me away. I'm offering them something I believe is going to sell pretty good. Do they care?"

(oh, and we needn't mention her right to say what ever she wants in her writing - aka freedom of speech)

I do believe she is on the right track with the 90% sales going to Amazon though (although those numbers are probably an exaggeration), but only because Amazon have been in the book selling market far, far, far longer that Apple have been. Today its losing the readership of one pretty succesful writing advice series, tomorrow Apple might try it on someone who isn't going be kind enough to just withdraw their offerings and ignore it.

The problem with Apple is that they, like a lot of other companies, draw in enough profit that they feel they can do what ever they like - because it just isn't going to cut into their revenue. Let's not forget they get the pick of the best when it comes to defense in court.

Who ever's "right", I still won't buy from Apple. Its the attitude. I can see through the vinear of "user-friendly wholesomeness".

They bundle their products too much for my liking. They pull bad business decisions like the above all over the place. I could go on but there's not much point... I've used plenty of Apple products in my time (I'm a music technologist.. most studios insist on using Macs) and well, they're all too, what's the word, shiney, like I'm being treated like an idiot and not trusted to use things responsibly. Protecting themselves from competition by picking and choosing is just another thing to add to my list.

But when I feel they treat me like a person I'll reconsider

EDIT: Someone commenting on that blog post said something I thought was 100% spot on.

"After all, Amazon doesn't refuse to sell "Steve Jobs a Biography")."

Make of that what you will hehe

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Valid points.

I still have trouble accepting the idea that a company would be forced to market the products or services of a competitor under the anti-trust laws. That is what this argument is truly focused on right? The author feels slighted because her book discusses Amazon and Apple doesn't want to give voice to their competitor.

Interesting debate though & like most legal issues it seems rather unclear.

Do you mean accepting that it could happen (like, that a company could be forced to sell competitors' products) or that it should be possible? Because Microsoft was forced (by the EU) to give users a choice of which web browser to use after they install various versions of Windows. So it most certainly can happen, at least in Europe.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Do you mean accepting that it could happen (like, that a company could be forced to sell competitors' products) or that it should be possible? Because Microsoft was forced (by the EU) to give users a choice of which web browser to use after they install various versions of Windows. So it most certainly can happen, at least in Europe.

We're derailing the thread a bit lol.... But, I'm saying that in the US I think it's a ridiculous notion to force a company to market competitor products.

 

[Steerpike]

We're derailing the thread a bit lol.... But, I'm saying that in the US I think it's ridiculous to force a company to market competitor products.

Depends on the situation. For example, you could draw a hypothetical. Say Amazon did 99% of the consumer electronics business in the U.S., and then said "Hey, Apple is our big competitor; we're not carrying their products any more." I could certainly see anti-trust problems there and the end result being that they have to carry them. You go the other direction, and say they do 1% of the electronic business. No one will care. Finding the cutoff is the trick, of course.

In the U.S., the government did require Microsoft to shares its APIs with competitors. It is certainly possible a court could order something like what we're talking about. I can't remember all of the anti-trust case law, and I don't practice that area except to the extent in impinges on IP issues, but I wouldn't be surprised to find similar things in the judicial precedent.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

There may be judicial precedent. I'd still think its ridiculous in a free market society in most cases.

Am I going to have to start a "Nabokov's a Hack" thread to pull your attention away from this topic?

 

[Steerpike]

There may be judicial precedent. I'd still think its ridiculous in a free market society in most cases.

Am I going to have to start a "Nabokov's a Hack" thread to pull your attention away from this topic?

LOL.

Well, I don't mind if my threads get derails down interesting paths. I try (not always successfully) not to derail others too much

There should be a Nabokov Rules thread in any writing forum!

Your viewpoint on anti-trust isn't uncommon. I am sympathetic to it overall, but I don't mind some anti-trust actions.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Yes, the purposes behind anti-trust statutes are sound, but like anything, they can be taken to far.

Don't even get me started on HOAs.... Now that's a derail.