The Predatory Side of Amazon?

Cory Doctorow analyzes in detail how, in his view, Amazon has developed bait-and-switch strategies to take advantage of both vendors and customers:

Amazon Makes Everything You Buy More Expensive

His abundance of specific details suggests that he knows whereof he speaks, so I don't dispute his facts. With one reservation about the article's title: Amazon doesn't make EVERYTHING more expensive. True, in my experience of buying non-book products on its site, many (but by no means all) cost more than they would in a physical store. But if the local place where we shop doesn't stock the product -- if the choice lies between paying a bit extra and not getting it at all -- I'll pay. Plus, with Prime, there's no shipping charge. Also prompt delivery.

Books, however, still seem to function as a loss leader. New books have consistently lower prices on Amazon than the suggested retail cost. With the Prime account my husband and I share, we get the free shipping, a considerable savings in view of how many books I buy per year. In addition, we get Prime Video, which I could hardly do without since Netflix stopped offering physical disks, in the process dropping untold numbers of vintage movies. Now at least I can usually find those streaming on Amazon.

As for its treatment of vendors, my only experience in that role involves Kindle self-publishing. Because I never sign up for the higher-royalty option that forbids selling the same e-book on other sites, I can offer those books on Draft2Digital as well as the Kindle platform with no restriction on the amount I can charge through the former.

In short, the Amazon Prime account offers discounted new books and, in the used-book category, access to almost anything ever published in English; gives us free, fast delivery of most items, with which we've hardly ever had problems; provides one-stop shopping for the vast majority of products we need, without the frustration of scouring the shelves of local stores in vain -- I have a low tolerance for in-person shopping, so if our supermarket doesn't have the thing, ordering online is the next step -- and I no longer even attempt the hopeless quest for clothes I can live with at physical stores; and, most importantly, has our address and credit card saved, so there's no need to share payment information with a bunch of different sellers' websites, and our Amazon account hasn't suffered a lapse in security in the many years we've bought from it (knock on wood).

So I depend heavily on Amazon, because for me its advantages -- which I benefit from constantly -- outweigh its flaws, which seldom or never directly affect us.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.