Amazon, Microsoft and toothpaste
Let us say that you bought a tube of toothpaste. You’d probably be pretty annoyed if the toothpaste company insisted that you used their toothbrushes. Equally, if you bought a toothbrush only to find that you were only allowed to use the toothbrush company’s toothpaste, you’d be a bit peeved.
That’s one of the objections - and there are many - that I have to Microsoft. Unfortunately, Amazon seem to be going down a similar path as reported by O’Reilly (via Tom Watson). Essentially, they are saying that people who self-publish books and want to sell them through Amazon can only sell them through Amazon. It is, ultimately, an anti-competitive practice as it uses Amazon’s weight to make it nigh-on impossible for competitors to enter the market. It is serious enough to make me think about whether I’d be able to keep using Amazon.
xD.
