#99 - Is Amazon The Reader's Friend?

Open to Debate

Education, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2015

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In late 2014, Amazon and the publishing house Hachette settled a months-long dispute over who should set the price for e-books. In Amazon’s view, lower prices mean more sales and more readers, and that benefits everyone. But for publishers, the price of an e-book must reflect the investment made, from the author’s advance to a book’s production. The conflict, resolved for now, has only raised more questions about the value of books, Amazon’s business practices, and the role of publishers. Is book publishing an oligopoly, a dinosaur in need of disruption? Is Amazon, which accounts for 41% of all new book and 67% of all e-book sales, a monopoly? Who is doing right by readers and the future of books? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by Crackin Pro. Meet the all-new Crackin Pro, the powerful
0:06.0	customizable, beautiful way to trade crypto. Its Crackin's most powerful trading platform
0:11.0	ever built for lightning fast trades, unpacked with features like advanced order management
0:16.0	and analytics tools, all in a redesigned modular trading interface.
0:20.0	Head to pro.crackin.com and trade like a pro. Cryptocurrencies are unregulated in the
0:24.9	UK. Prophies may be subject to capsule gains tax and the value of cryptocurrencies can
0:28.8	go down or up.
0:29.8	Time for Diet Coke. Yes, yes, yes.
0:38.8	I really needed that. Love what you love. Diet Coke. Get runaway
0:50.2	ready. A chance to win the ultimate shopping experience plus hundreds of prizes curated
0:54.9	by Kate Moss. From a Paxen store, 18 plus Tizen Sees visit Coke.co.uk slash break.
1:02.7	Welcome to Intelligent Squared US, I'm John Donovan and wow, that Gutenberg guy, 1455,
1:08.9	he churns out a Bible with movable type and how would that be described if it were today?
1:13.9	Well we would say that Gutenberg was really rocking the religious content space with a platform
1:19.2	of innovation and disruption, putting the whole God brand in front of a whole lot more
1:25.5	sticky eyeballs for scripture. Part in my buzzwords please.
1:30.2	But now comes Amazon. And is that perhaps as historic? One click, shopping e-books, disruptive,
1:36.8	Amazon could very well drive traditional publishers and brick and mortar bookstores
1:41.2	completely out of the book space. And is that a good thing or a bad thing? Well that
1:46.0	sounds like the makings of a debate. So let's have it. Yes or no to this statement. Amazon
1:51.6	is the readers friend, a debate from Intelligent Squared US. I'm John Donovan, let's meet our
1:57.9	debaters. Please ladies and gentlemen welcome to the stage Joe Conrath.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Open to Debate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Open to Debate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.