Friday, April 20, 2012

Mungo the Merciless

At this point, you guys are probably wondering why I haven't said anything about that whole anti-price-fixing lawsuit being brought against Apple and and the big publishers, several of whom have already settled. Short answer? Because it's complicated and unpleasant. The short version is Apple opened the way for the agency model which is definitely a good thing. It also contains a clause which does essentially fix prices, so it's hard to really counter the thrust of the lawsuit, hence half the big publishers settling as quick as they could. At the same time, giving in here puts the digital agency model at risk, which would take power and better profit margins away from the publisher. Not even sure at all that I'd say the old model would be good for retailers even since it requires more work and more risk on their part. Before Apple's appearance on the scene (and it was more just that they existed than any sort of credible threat to Amazon's e-book dominance) Amazon bought e-books at full price, often for more than the physical books and ate the cost difference when they sold them for 9.99. They did that to push their hardware and to establish an actually viable market for e-books. These days, the hardware costs a lot less and e-books are a much bigger part of the market, so I don't know why you'd want to use them as a "loss leader."

So, I guess that wasn't a short explanation at all, but it gets much more complicated than that. Suffice to say, I'm not happy with any of it, but it is the proverbial rock and the hard place. Between this whole thing and my obviously bizarre taste in children's flms, I've been in the mood for blues, lately. Up tempo blues. Do you know what that means? It means Mungo Motherfuckin' Jerry, people. That's what it means.



All this very serious silliness is getting to me. And I like it. So next week, I'ma talk about ghosts with twists. How are those things connected? Well, you'll just have to join me Monday for "The Low Down in Laos" OR "Comrade Ghost" in order to find out.

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