Comments on: Delayed E-Book Releases – Smart or Annoying?

By: Nathan Shapiro

Nathan Shapiro — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:40:57 +0000

I think it’s an OK business model. After all, it’s their product and they’re simply trying to develop a means that will sell it best. Good sales=more future product for the consumer. If they’re wrong, they will change it down the line.

Personally, I don’t have a Kindle yet, though I definitely want one.

By: CVBruce

CVBruce — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:49:59 +0000

I think that this is dumb. A publisher spends money on advertising for the release of the hardback. Hopefully the book will sell well enough to make it onto a best seller list. When interest it at its peak, they decide to keep it off the market.

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By: Michael Makovi

Michael Makovi — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:15:43 +0000

“And, after all, aren’t the customers’ needs supposed to be priority #1?”

Yes, but there’s also the “tyranny of the majority” (Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America; and the Federalist Papers) to be reckoned with.

Simon & Schuster seems to be thinking that if they sell paper-books and e-books equally, then most people will buy the e-books, making it too cost-prohibitive to sell paper-books at all. Thus, the majority (the e-books buyers) will have tyrannized the minority.

I’m not saying whether or not I agree with Simon & Schuster here (though, as a lover of hard copies, I’m inclined to indeed agree with them here). I’m just trying to put their actions within the context of Locke-ian democratic social-contract theory.