Recent news coverage seems to portray
Amazon as a bully for trying to keep readers from J.K. Rowling’s latest novel
and The Lego Movie as it negotiates better deals with its publishing and movie
distribution partners.
The question is, do consumers really care?
“People selling things seem more aware of
Amazon’s action that those buying things,” Joshua Brustein wrote in Bloomberg Business.
“Anyone who has shopped online is familiar with inconsistent availability of
items at any given time. Even if someone ends up leaving Amazon to buy a book
or a movie from a rival website, it won’t necessarily generate hostility toward
Amazon.”
Prominent authors have been complaining,
but there hasn’t been much of a public outcry. In fact, a survey from YouGov showed there’s been virtually no change in the public perception of Amazon,
which remains No. 1 in the American Customers Satisfaction Index.
“Some think that the way for publishers to
change this is to beat Amazon at its own game, pulling all their titles and
making it clear why they’re doing it,” Brustein wrote. “That would be very
likely to grab attention. The outcome of the ensuing standoff would probably
come down to which side needs the other more. That seems a risky bet for the
publishing industry.”
At the same time, the price of Amazon stock is climbing.
“While it’s hard sometimes to say why Wall
Street behaves the way it does, it could be that investors see Amazon’s
struggle in terms of its effort to increase its raze-thin profit margin, or
similarly, as was posited by David Streitfeld of The New York Times, who
initially broke the Amazon-Hachette story, to help finance its many investments
in its future business,” wrote Jeremy Greenfield in Forbes.
“Or, perhaps investors are ignoring Amazon’s moves in book publishing and
focusing on its other businesses.”
