Amazon and MacMillan -- Goliath and Goliath

On one level, this whole brouhaha about Amazon de-listing MacMillan books is a bit of a tempest in a teapot; Amazon has the right to set prices any way they see fit -- predatory as they may be -- while MacMillan is hardly the first publisher to delay the release date of their electronic editions so that the sale of such doesn't eat into the hardback market. From this perspective, Amazon made a fairly mundane business decision.

On another level, however, the struggle between the two companies is a prime example of what happens when one publisher becomes, essentially, the whole market. Amazon is the Wal-Mart of online publishing -- try to name an online bookstore with even a fraction of its business profile. Like the superstores choking Mom'n'Pops everywhere to death, it is not so much a store as a corporate juggernaut whose main purpose is to obliterate any and all competition. Forget your neighborhood bookstore and the campus library; Amazon has the money, the muscle and, just as importantly, the profile to bully even a publishing giant like MacMillan. A monopoly is wonderful if you happen to own one, but it is unhealthy for the system it grows in because it all but eliminates the competition that, at least theoretically, keeps the system going.

If there is a bright side to Amazon's corporate glut, it is that it occasionally throws its weight around so brazenly that other companies realize just who they're dealing with, and invest instead in the needs of brick-and-mortar companies such as chains and indies in order to preserve a diversity of sellers. It must have worked, because Amazon has said that it will eventually relist MacMillan, who does after all supply a great number of the books Amazon sells.

While MacMillan is not exactly an underdog, and presumably made their decision from a bottom-line analysis rather than altruism, it still stood up to the bigger bully -- and the bigger guy blinked. The system works, kind of.