Apple Hit With Price Fixing Charges

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/business/media/amazon-to-cut-e-book-prices-shaking-rivals.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

DOJ has sued Apple and 5 publishers over price fixing charges related to E-books. Agreement raised most e book prices by $5.00.

As soon as the suit was announced Amazon announced that they are dropping their prices back to $9.99

 

I was very happy to see this. I was surprised it didn't happen sooner -- it's pretty much a textbook case of price fixing, and they were pretty obvious about it.

The publishing industry seems absolutely intent to follow the path of the music industry, which is pretty remarkable, since the music industry is gasping its last breaths. The e-book reminds me of the CD -- suddenly there is a much cheaper but better way to deliver the product, and they're trying to charge more for the low-cost product. (And while much of the coverage of this has focused on new e-books being $14.99, less than new hardbacks, it has ignored the fact that they are infinitely cheaper to produce, and that older e-books are now uniformly $9.99, which is more than a paperback.)

After getting millions of people to buy e-readers they hiked the e-book prices considerably. If you charge a more reasonable price, people will pay it. If you boost the prices like they have, people are going to figure out that it's not too hard to find the e-book you want for free, either through the library or online.

On a related note, I love my iPad, but Steve Jobs was a colossal douche.