The Los Angeles Times‘s Michael Hiltzik gets it on Amazon and the Justice Department’s seriously misguided antitrust lawsuit against book publishers and Apple:
Amazon’s position in the e-book market was so close to unassailable at the time the publishers reached agreement with Apple that many in the industry are still reeling from the government’s response. “I’m amazed the Department of Justice is so myopic in bringing this case,” says Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the publishing market research firm Codex Group.
In essence, the government walked blithely past the increasing threat of an Amazon monopoly and went after the stakeholders who were trying to keep it from taking root…
Critics of the government’s e-book case, and of the judge’s endorsement of the settlement, say the fundamental error lies in treating the relevant market as the book market. It’s not. What’s at issue is the e-book market, which is inextricable from the sale of proprietary e-book readers like the Kindle.
For more background, here are a couple of my takes from earlier in the year.
— New York‘s Kevin Roose has the funniest blog post of the day, “Actual Things That Came Out of Human Mouths at Day One of TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF Conference”:
“We’re iterating our butts off, dude.”
“Looks like it’s searching for a use case.”
“We’re all about glocal right now.”
And, of course:
“We don’t measure our success by financial results.”
Paging Fake Jeff Jarvis!
— Comment of the Day goes to “Harry T” over at The Wall Street Journal, criticizing a blog post on “Entrepeneurial Lessons Gleaned from Bob Dylan,” which includes paragraphs like this:
The product known as “Bob Dylan/Folk Singer” was flourishing in 1965. He was selling out halls in America and England and young people held him up as the “Spokesman of a Generation.” But Dylan was restless; eager to grow and change. He decided to begin recording and performing with the rock and roll band accompanying him. Initially, his folk-purist fans were aghast and they solidly booed Dylan’s new incarnation when he toured around the world in 1965 and 1966. But he persevered and stayed true to his vision. Eventually, the fans came around. Bottom line: Dylan was not afraid to rock the boat and shake things up.
Is nothing sacred? Anyway, over to you, Harry T:
Ryan Chittum is a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and deputy editor of The Audit, CJR’s business section. If you see notable business journalism, give him a heads-up at rc2538@columbia.edu. Follow him on Twitter at @ryanchittum.Bob Dylan is not a Peter Drucker with an Afro. this is utter nonsense and pathetic for a paper like the WSJ to print this type of starry eyed pap.
