Apple lays off employees working on Books and News

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John F

Maybe? Did the collusion force ebook stores that discounted to close? Is that "what the market took care of"?

For example, looks at the timelines of fictionwise and the Apple/publishers collusion:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fictionwise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...v._Apple_(2012)

The collusion did cause the eBook stores that discounted to close as they could no longer discount and there business models were no longer viable.

B&N's purchase of Fictionwise was not the reason they closed. B&N bought Fictionwise for the DRM they now use on nook books.

[theducks]

Collusion is hard to prove unless they were really incompetent.
Do I need to talk to a competitor, or can I simply look at their product in the marketplace? It is called comparison shopping and decide which way I want to go. Happened all the time in the 70's when there were gas stations on multiple corners. x was 35 cents, y was 36 cents and z matched x (yes, those were common prices then)

[DNSB]

When multiple gas stations from different companies kilometres apart raise their prices within a minute of each other, it does make you wonder just a titch about the possibility of collusion.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DNSB

When multiple gas stations from different companies kilometres apart raise their prices within a minute of each other, it does make you wonder just a titch about the possibility of collusion.

We banned Company Stations over a decade ago. In Cal. it was Standard Oil (the co) and Chevron (ind, selling SO products), because of that instant price change.
I can't remember what brands you have in BC

[DNSB]

Hmmm... Esso, Petro-Can, Chevron, Shell, Costco, Safeway, Mobil, Husky & Super Save that I can remember off the top of my head. We had Arco for a while years back but they ran into the lack of brand loyalty—What? You want me to pay 2 cents more per litre for your brand name? Thanks but no thanks.

[DiapDealer]

From my (limited) experience working with owners/managers of gas stations, it's more a matter of everyone in town monitoring the current "biggest fish in the barrel." A game of copycat-ism in an age where you can find these things out instantly.

I drive through several different medium-sized scopes of influence during the week and can see 10-15 cent differences.

[jackm8]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When Apple got involved, they wanted to take down Amazon and got the major publishers involved.

You're awfully naive if you think that's the case. The deal today is digital corporations working amongst themselves to keep their prime monopole businesses going without any interference. Apple did a token ebook project, so Amazon didn't look as dominant as it is.

Similar cases exist with Microsoft toying around in mobile OS market. Adobe being given total monopoly and no competition by MS and Apple, in return it's forcing their software to the newest OS'es from those companies, and not competing in areas where they are active. Something must also exist between Apple and Microsoft, seeing how they completely stopped competing in hardware, gaming, and streaming.