It wasn't me. It was them. Point those fingers the other way.
Once the publishers had their way, they raised prices. Of course they raised prices. Amazon, with 90% of the ebook market, was pricing ebooks below cost and the publishers were losing money. The difference had to be made up somewhere.
Why did Apple go to court on the charge of price-fixing, when all the publishers quietly settled? Maybe because Apple firmly believes it is not guilty of the crime, and it isn't going to let the Federal Government cast aspersions on Steve Jobs' legacy.
Mr. Cue's testimony is key because the Feds say he's the one who rigged the prices. It was all his handiwork, the agency model for ebook pricing. In court, he's saying he didn't do it. All Apple did was to let publishers set the price and then take a 30% cut. Where' s the price fixing conspiracy in that? If the publishers discussed among themselves, that isn't anything that Apple controlled.
The agency model caused ebook prices to rise, according to the government, but it has been pointed out that ebook prices actually fell overall. The publishers were able to increase prices on the hottest titles and then cut the price on the backlist or midlist titles. It's how they price print editions, and it's how they wanted to price ebooks until Amazon got involved.
And what about Amazon? The iBookstore cut into their share of the market, which would suggest that the agency model improved competition. If Amazon's books were so much cheaper, it wouldn't have lost a considerable chunk of market share to Apple. Consumers are not stupid, even if the Justice Department thinks they are.
It's been suggested that Amazon got the litigation ball rolling, using the courts to crush a competitor when that competitor was putting the squeeze on Amazon's total control of the ebook market.
Not that the Justice Department cares. They won't step in to curtail Amazon until all the competition is crushed. When it's too late.
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