Amazon (Photo credit: edgeplot)
I want to talk today about Amazon and how it exercises its self-interest.
There’s been a lot of ranting discussion about Amazon lately. Various news articles and blog posts more or less accuse them of being evil for, among other things:
- Donating $1 million to small presses and non-profit literary organizations.
- Raising the promotional fees charged to large publishers for promoting their books.
- Giving their workers top pay and benefits and expecting hard work in return.
- Not paying taxes they’re not required to pay, even though they have supported changing the laws to make them fairer.
- Allowing anyone to publish books, without policing them.
- “Refusing” to sell books from a publisher that pulled them.
- Being the puppet master behind the lawsuits against Apple and the Big 6 publishers.
- Generally being a meanie and eating everyone’s lunch by being too competitive (and somehow stifling competition by being competitive).
