Amazon: The New Evil Empire?

by Gordon Haber

Death Star rising. Photo Collage: Howard Longden via Flickr.

Death Star rising. Photo Collage: Howard Longden via Flickr.

 

This week in the New Yorker, George Packer has a skeptical piece about Amazon. It’s worth a read, but I found it a little confused. Here, in no particular order, are my thoughts:

  • The Big 5 are angry and scared. Amazon has inserted itself into the book business and taken a chunk of their profits. But how specifically is that bad for readers? The usual answer is that there’s been a decline in “midlist” authors–talented writers who don’t bring in much money. But that was a problem well before Amazon showed up.
  • Packer suggests that Amazon’s secrecy is somehow immoral or antithetical to literature. Who cares if they’re secretive? Are the corporations that own the Big 5 completely transparent? Isn’t it more problematic (for good writing) that the parent corporations of the Big 5 set quarterly profit targets for publishers?
  • The biggest concern for authors is this: if and when Amazon controls enough of the market that they lower their royalties and put the squeeze on writers.
  • The biggest concern for authors and consumers is this: that Amazon mistreats its warehouse employees. I’ve experienced the academic version of this and it’s not fun. Nothing else concerns me much.

Full disclosure: I use Amazon and they have published my work.

Anyone else want to weigh in?