A lot of comments don’t seem to get the context of this.
Book prices are regulated in France [0] and you can’t just discount willy-nilly, in particular new book publications have selling prices set by the publisher.
This proposition is coming on top of that: it will block sellers from artificially discounting books by subsidizing shipping cost. It is basically closing a loophole that still allowed Amazon to have lower prices than others.
It doesn’t matter if you’re independent, purely online or not. The effect will be to force the same sticker price everywhere, as intended for years now.
It may push people to buy local, but it’s only a side effect, and not the directly intended goal (there are other french online retailers that will benefit a lot more from this law).
> This proposition is coming on top of that: it will block sellers from artificially discounting books by subsidizing shipping cost. It is basically closing a loophole that still allowed Amazon to have lower prices than others.
So you are basically not allowed to pass the savings to your customers if you manage to innovate with your supply chain... That's interesting.
how about intentionally flawing the book by adding a line with a pen somewhere or similar. that's how I have it seen done in Germany to bypass price fixing.
I don't even think Amazon wins on cost. It also wins on convenience and completeness. If I need to find a book or research on a subject, I'm not going to peruse a local book store, I'm going to use a Library Catalog, Amazon Search, or Google Search, from the convenience of my phone or desktop.
Local book stores being the same price, or even cheaper, isn't likely to influence my initial tendency to preview on the Web first, and if I search for my book and preview on the Web, I'm much more likely to buy it there too.
IMHO, France is only forestalling the inevitable, and eventually local book shops value won't be in selling books, but in providing a hangout place to discuss things, to have book tour speakers in person, to serve hipster coffee and snacks, etc. But as a pure book retail warehouse? I think think this is dead in the long term.
For what it's worth, obscure books will come from small sellers that won't rely on Amazon's warehouses.
In these cases, Amazon acts as a real marketplace where a seller just gets a storefront to access their customers: shipping will often be done manually, the customer paying the real cost etc.
As an Amazon user, I really like that arrangement, where Amazon does what it is best at (cart handling), and small independent players get to reach a wide audience.
BTW this law has almost nothing to do with that, it will mainly affect best sellers from big publishers that set regulated prices (legal max discount is 5%, under conditions). Up until now online shop were flying under the radar as it seems, but regulator are catching up.
You'll get better prices if you look off amazon at one of the used book metasearch engines, like used.addall.com. You're also far more likely to end up ordering from a small, local store. To save on postage, you might order from one near you (or even pick up the book.)
Well that last one will only happen in France, after this. In the US you go to Amazon for the free postage. And since so many people go to Amazon for the free postage, they can somehow charge a higher price without postage than indie booksellers including postage. It's a brand premium, not a convenience or cost premium. Too many people have the habit of checking Amazon first.
Before Amazon, I had to travel all the way to London to get a decent book store. Even then I was lucky if they had 100 books on physics total. God forbid you want a choice of more than 1 tomb on semiconductors.
Now the world is my oyster.
But people are desperate to save the local Waterstones that stocks nothing but sports biographies and celeb cooking books...
Amazon is using its money to basically price dump books, forcing competitors to the same path if they want to stand a chance. Having the other players also get into dumping is not a desirable outcome.
I’m suspicious that Amazon sells fewer books than a good physical bookstore. In a bookstore, people find books they didn’t know they want, and I’ve never found anything interesting on Amazon. Similarly, Amazon does not produce the “whole I’m already here, I might as well buy something else” effect.
I’ve long thought that the publishers have has their whole business model wrong in quite a few ways.
In the long run it might hurt small book shops as well, as the number of new books published in France drops, especially books published by new authors (as they are less likely to sell at high prices) and the number of books people read drops overall so the whole industry shrinks overtime.
I think that's what happaned with a similar law in Israel. These bad effects were predicted a head of adopting the law in Israel and then actually materialized. Finally this law of price control was drop altogether due to these adversarial effects.
France has a long history of attempting to protect its cultural industries, including film and publishing.
It's not wrong. There are other things that are important aside from customer purchasing power.
Amazon is using its economies of scale to drive out smaller businesses. It is not unique in that. But the industries that Amazon affects may be unique to the nations that wish to preserve them.
Most centralization incrementally kills local industry, including the local culture industry. TV, railroads, chain stores, Wal-mart, you name it -- they are all killing something local.
I'd also note that, at least in my experience, the "book culture" in France is much more than we think of even small booksellers in the US.
That is, in the US the vision is generally something along the lines of Amazon vs. small independent stores a la "You've Got Mail".
In France, there are big, multi-day book fairs that take up large swaths of major cities. I visited Lyon during the Quais du Polar festival years ago, which is a 3 or 4 day event focused just on the crime fiction genre. I've never experienced anything like that in the US.
In the United States Robert Bork advanced the “consumer welfare” philosophy of anti-trust policy. It allows for monopolies that provide lower prices or better products/service even if competition is crushed. In the European Union loss of competition is a harm per se.
With regards to big players and economies of scale, it's notable that on the other side of the exchange we have more people brought into the fold than ever, whether we're talking about books, movies, or apps. Otherwise there wouldn't be any leverage by which to squeeze out smaller entities.
In modern times, this is an incidental cost of access.
There's also some understandable doubts about the long term results of this tradeoff, as it is suspected that the final stage of this play is to raise prices again, thereby squeezing access up to some "optimal" equilibrium.
Walmart has increased the standard of living of the lower class quit considerably.
In the 1980's everything was kind of expensive. From 1990-2010 with the rise of real globalisation it was just unbelievable what could be had for a a few dollars.
I think most people would notice it if Walmart were to suddenly disappear.
That said, anything cultural is probably worth preserving, usually we don't price in those things well enough.
Also, 'quality' and other intangibles don't fare well into the equation.
So it's a matter of being really smart with the regulation, and hopefully sorting out the tax regimes as well so as to not allow the 'Ireland Tax Haven' scenarios.
> Most centralization incrementally kills local industry
And it makes the world more fragile and less diverse and interesting. Capitalism is founded on the idea of many producers competing for many customers.
Amazon model steps as middleman so producers have only one buyer, and consumers have only one seller. That gives them a lot of power to control prices, and what is produced or consumed.
> Most centralization incrementally kills local industry, including the local culture industry. TV, railroads, chain stores, Wal-mart, you name it -- they are all killing something local.
Although I agree with this, but I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing for the customers. Some industries are best centralized and some are not. For the business of selling books I think it's best to have a lot of sellers.
Would you be able to elaborate on this or was it hyperbole? Personal experience is where there is passenger rail service are inherently more interesting.
>Most centralization incrementally kills local industry, including the local culture industry. TV, railroads, chain stores, Wal-mart, you name it -- they are all killing something local.
This is probably true, but also probably inevitable. As the world shrinks we lose local flavor but gain a more commonly held homogeneous culture. I'm not sure that this is new, just faster than it was before.
> Amazon is using its economies of scale to drive out smaller businesses. It is not unique in that. But the industries that Amazon affects may be unique to the nations that wish to preserve them.
Another way of phrasing that: France’s local book sellers are so bad at serving their customers that an American company that’s existed less than 30 years can totally undercut them, despite the local sellers’ massive advantage in understanding their local communities and culture.
I don’t know why folks are so willing to jump to protect small businesses that don’t do a good job. Local is fundamentally a good place to be. Local is an advantage. (Amazon knows this; see how they’re using Whole Foods to create a local presence and _improve_ their service). Large businesses got to be large because they were better at serving their customers than the small businesses.
My personal experience is that the small businesses are just worse at providing consistent, friendly, high quality service. They are rewarded by the market accordingly.
Government protection for heritage is maybe ok, but protecting lazy, self-entitled business owners from competitive market forces is not. If there’s really a problem with shipping costs that they desperately need to fix, they can just make postage cheaper for books, similar to the USPS media mail program.
By local industry, you're actually talking about fragmented industry. It's only local to the locals, of whom there are far fewer than, well, literally everyone else.
Centralization is also densification, which has merits backed by scientific research. It's, in theory, better for everyone - well, for everyone else.
Not a big fan of Amazon but I also find it ridiculous and self-sacking to fixate on obsolete ideas. If you have to force a business to exist, maybe it doesn’t need to exist.
I don't think books are obsolete, many people still enjoying reading them, and buying them. Also, there are plenty of government subsidized programs that are popular with people. No economic model can perfectly match our sensibilities. We as a society protect things that we think need protection. It's really as simple as that.
I wouldn't go as far as saying that in this case they're "forcing" business to exist, rather help existing (and often struggling) local business against bigger (mostly foreign) business who use economy of scales (or willingness to not take a profit for a few years in order to corner a market) to offer the same service cheaper
There’s a wide gap between “forcing a business to exist” and 100% unfettered capitalism. My preference is to be somewhere along that spectrum, not at either end.
Maybe that exact thinking paved ways for corrupt monopolies. There is a thin line between trying to force a business to exist vs forcing a huge conglomerate from extinguishing businesses with its money.
It’s forced obsoleting. Forced existence is the pushback. There are better methods though I agree. When we finally bring more manufacturing back to the US I think that’ll be a natural way to put a damper on Amazon’s harm to our country
I was in B+N last summer, and as I recall they had 6 full shelves of "Trump Is Bad" books. I amuse myself by collecting them, and have 36 so far (all different). I pick them up at the thrift store for a buck or two.
I started a Biden collection, but only one book so far. Things that make you go hmmmm....
Yeah. So many problems caused by businesses who simply refuse to die. Their time has passed but they simply refuse to go away and let humanity move on. The entire copyright industry for example.
There at least one big online book selling store in France that will benefit from this law if it passes.
The point is not on online vs brick and mortar, it’s to prevent Amazon from providing a lower price by eating shipping costs. Keep in mind they can’t reduce the book cost when it’s new (it’s a French law), so shipping price was their only lever.
So, basically Amazon is in a win-win situation. If the status quo prevails, they're happy. If they have to start charging for shipping, maybe some customers go to a local bookstore but Amazon also has a legal mandate to make more profit in their book sales by not subsidizing shipping out of the wholesale margin. And while some people will buy local a bit more, Amazon sells so many things and the local store may still have to order your book and get it to you slower than Amazon, keeping Amazon as the most convenient option... I don't see a long-term downside for Amazon here.
There are laws preventing price dropping on new books.
If Amazon has to start charging for shipping, they will be charging the same as every other bookstore in total, making them just another option among the others. Some will still prefer Amazon, but there is no downside anymore to chose another online shop (and there’s plenty big and reputable ones).
Oh good one. I guess at the end thats what these comapnies want. If they cant get market share through prices they'll do it in other ways as long as there is a level playing field.
Similar to what fb is dealing with. They would welcome any legislation to hamper social media competition since they could then stop buying up potential threats.
Amazon doesn't even order books anymore in many cases.
Most of their paperbacks are printed on demand. Kinda cool and pretty good for the environment IMO. Never a book being printed that's not needed. But smaller stores can't compete with that.
Another option would have been to support local bookstores by subsidizing transportation, which would have allowed them to lower the price to the point of being competitive with Amazon.
But I guess that using public money to help local businesses is not as good as getting the customers to pay and help Amazon at the same time, in the eyes of Macron.
I'm curious whether French independent bookstores have been harmed much by Amazon. In the US, Amazon has probably actually been a boon — the number of independent bookstores has grown dramatically over the last decade, in part because Amazon squashed the previous era's giant book retailers like Borders and Barnes and Noble, who had been crushing independent bookstores.
To all posters who harp on the "this is stupid" theme: I do agree, but saying this is imo short-sighted.
Much more likely, we're witnessing a good old-fashioned lobbying effort bearing fruits at the expense of the consumer and in favor of a small but politically connected group of businesses.
All for a way to protect small businesses which actually pay local taxes vs. Amazon which doesn't pay taxes in the US at all - but not sure a minimum ship price is the best approach.
Isn't there a better way, perhaps based on physical presence?
It's funny that we still pin Amazon against bookstores - I was under the impression that Amazon is shipping _everything_ those days, and that books are not what most people go to Amazon for any more.
Discovery on Amazon is pretty bad. I've never picked a book there after having serendipitously finding my way to it. But I've done exactly that in bookstores countless times.
The only websites that give me an experience remotely similar are those of old, specialized publishers. Case in point (in French) :
I think resisting change only takes you so far. Let systems become efficient. Centralized systems like Amazon will find an antidote in decentralized ones like Shopify. We don't miss horse carriages but I am sure they were part of daily life a 100+ years ago. Disruption and change is part of life.
I'd rather not have them race to the bottom to "remain competitive".
I also rather not have the book industry of a country dependent on the whims (and VC/bottomless pit of money to stay "competitive" while they crush a market) of an American company. Even more so one with no culture and no respect for the book as a work of the spirit whatsoever.
For 2019, before the pandemic, parent company Lagardere made about $200 million on $7 billion in revenue. Amazon made $11B on $280B in revenue. So 40-50 times bigger.
In the last 4 quarters Lagardere lost $376M on $4B in revenue. While Amazon exploded to $29B on $443B in revenue. So more like 100 times bigger.
This seems to be incentivising the customer to shop in-person instead of online and seems spectacularly uninspired, they could have simply waived taxes on books for companies headquartered in France? Or really anything that isn't simply forcing the customer to pay shipping?
“French law prohibits free book deliveries but Amazon has circumvented this by charging a single centime (cent). Local book stores typically charge about 5-7 euros ($5.82-8.15) for shipping a book.”
Interesting how Amazon charge a “centime”, which hasn’t been legal tender in France since 2002…
Amazons book selling business has been getting worse. It’s hard to search hard to find books, or books with common names. Shipping times are nothing special.
It’s funny how “book selling” went from being Amazon’s core business to a distraction.
Edit: I recommend EBay if you want to buy a physical tome.
Is there a word for laws that disproportionately affect people in rural areas so that a government can play protectionist for urban companies? I hate Amazon as much as anyone, but in this case they're definitely not wrong, even if they're probably lying about their reasoning.
Specific quote is:
> Imposing a minimum shipping cost for books would weigh on the purchasing power of consumers.
The other side is a bit more complex, but Amazon is definitely subsidizing shipping costs from their yearly subscription and seller fees. The argument is that this is unfair to smaller companies which don't have capital to burn... and that is kind of true? I think there are valid points on both sides.
I don't know if there's a word for that, but it certainly seems like it would be exceedingly rare. Don't people in rural areas have vastly disproportionately large representation in government, public spending per capita, etc.? Of course, I'm just basing this on my intuition in the United States. My intuition could be way off, or France could be quite different.
I can't read the full article thanks to the paywall so maybe I'm missing it, but: where is the urban protectionism here?
More generally, my limited understanding of French politics is that they have a very strong agricultural interest that's disproportionate to the populace, similar to the US. The limited news I read about French domestic politics indicates that their government generally accommodates and subsidizes non-urban citizens, much like ours does.
Edit: Here's the (Amazon) quote about rural concerns:
> Amazon said the legislation, adopted by parliament but not yet enacted, would punish those in rural areas who cannot easily visit a bookstore and rely on delivery.
As an anecdote, where I live Amazon has switched from Colis Privé to Colissimo. With Colis Privé, I used to always get my packages in my mailbox, even if they had to force it in a bit. Nothing was ever damaged because of this. With Colissimo, they come at usually 15h on a week day, may or may not call you, and either give the package to a neighbor or put it at the local post office. In short, the delivery went from great to garbage.
As for the current state of the "book industry" where I live: you have 4 choices, either Amazon, an independant bookstore, Decitre (a local bookstore chain), or FNAC (basically Amazon but with physical buildings). Independant bookstores are usually great at recommandations (way better than anything Amazon can do for example), but some of them are just a small-size FNAC, which kind of removes the point of an independant bookstore. As someone that almost only buy books when I know which book I want to buy, so I don't benefit a lot from independant bookstores, but people around me like them a lot.
I apologize in advance for generalizing here and there. The point holds.
“Capitalism” is what people do when they’re not having sex (and sometimes even then). It is the most powerful economic engine we know about.
“Socialism” is the discipline of maximizing overall human welfare within the economic limits.
The engine and the steering wheel so to speak. I’m willing to bet those definitions are in no dictionary, but the basic point is roughly what no constitution has yet to get right.
The tricky bit is avoiding capture, and I’m optimistic we can do this without shooting all the lobbyists, but it would be a bargain even at that price.
Basically prices will rise for French due to poor competitiveness. This is a growing trend and will not be limited to books.
Speaking of “culture” or religion, some practices are bad and better to die. We don’t live in caves anymore after all. It might feel nice to talk about unique culture and identity of isolated tribes in Amazon (the rainforest, not the company); trust me, you don’t want to be in some of these places if you are a woman or disabled.
Local shops need to find creative ways to do business (coffee offers, meet ups etc), instead of lobbying that governments kills competition. Or do something else.
One problem is a lot of people really will buy the cheapest thing without even thinking about it.
Then 5 years later they'll complain that wages are down, local shops are closed up, the quality of products they bought went to hell, and the only thing their town has is a raggedy Walmart.
It's kind of hard to compete with a multinational trillion dollar corporation that actively seeks to crush your small business through unreasonably low prices and third world manufacturing just to eliminate future competition and secure a profit stream. And now that people thought they'd saved their town from Walmart, Amazon is coming in to clean out the rest.
Yeah, let's replace all world cultures with monoculture of McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Disneyland. After all, US being able to pour printed money at absurd quantities means it has the best culture in the world, and all the others vastly inferior?..
makeitdouble|4 years ago
Book prices are regulated in France [0] and you can’t just discount willy-nilly, in particular new book publications have selling prices set by the publisher.
This proposition is coming on top of that: it will block sellers from artificially discounting books by subsidizing shipping cost. It is basically closing a loophole that still allowed Amazon to have lower prices than others.
It doesn’t matter if you’re independent, purely online or not. The effect will be to force the same sticker price everywhere, as intended for years now.
It may push people to buy local, but it’s only a side effect, and not the directly intended goal (there are other french online retailers that will benefit a lot more from this law).
[0] https://www.sne.fr/app/uploads/2017/11/Intervention-Catherin...
pier25|4 years ago
So in the end the seller with the best service will win.
908B64B197|4 years ago
So you are basically not allowed to pass the savings to your customers if you manage to innovate with your supply chain... That's interesting.
unknown|4 years ago
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74d-fe6-2c6|4 years ago
option|4 years ago
cromwellian|4 years ago
Local book stores being the same price, or even cheaper, isn't likely to influence my initial tendency to preview on the Web first, and if I search for my book and preview on the Web, I'm much more likely to buy it there too.
IMHO, France is only forestalling the inevitable, and eventually local book shops value won't be in selling books, but in providing a hangout place to discuss things, to have book tour speakers in person, to serve hipster coffee and snacks, etc. But as a pure book retail warehouse? I think think this is dead in the long term.
makeitdouble|4 years ago
In these cases, Amazon acts as a real marketplace where a seller just gets a storefront to access their customers: shipping will often be done manually, the customer paying the real cost etc.
As an Amazon user, I really like that arrangement, where Amazon does what it is best at (cart handling), and small independent players get to reach a wide audience.
BTW this law has almost nothing to do with that, it will mainly affect best sellers from big publishers that set regulated prices (legal max discount is 5%, under conditions). Up until now online shop were flying under the radar as it seems, but regulator are catching up.
pessimizer|4 years ago
Well that last one will only happen in France, after this. In the US you go to Amazon for the free postage. And since so many people go to Amazon for the free postage, they can somehow charge a higher price without postage than indie booksellers including postage. It's a brand premium, not a convenience or cost premium. Too many people have the habit of checking Amazon first.
LatteLazy|4 years ago
Now the world is my oyster.
But people are desperate to save the local Waterstones that stocks nothing but sports biographies and celeb cooking books...
mdp2021|4 years ago
You seem to forget about the public that wants (demands) a book retail warehouse. The median shopper does not exhaust the market.
pier25|4 years ago
Big stores like the Fnac could offer the same shipping prices as Amazon (and maybe they're already doing it).
Publishers don't care much who is selling the book as long as it's selling.
Obviously this only applies to physical books. Ebooks only account for about 15% of books sold in France unlike the US where it's close to 50% [1].
[1] https://imgur.com/edK0YWP
makeitdouble|4 years ago
Amazon is using its money to basically price dump books, forcing competitors to the same path if they want to stand a chance. Having the other players also get into dumping is not a desirable outcome.
BurningFrog|4 years ago
Looks like it's protecting everyone except the book buying consumer.
amluto|4 years ago
I’ve long thought that the publishers have has their whole business model wrong in quite a few ways.
sgregnt|4 years ago
I think that's what happaned with a similar law in Israel. These bad effects were predicted a head of adopting the law in Israel and then actually materialized. Finally this law of price control was drop altogether due to these adversarial effects.
throwaway789257|4 years ago
It's not wrong. There are other things that are important aside from customer purchasing power.
Amazon is using its economies of scale to drive out smaller businesses. It is not unique in that. But the industries that Amazon affects may be unique to the nations that wish to preserve them.
Most centralization incrementally kills local industry, including the local culture industry. TV, railroads, chain stores, Wal-mart, you name it -- they are all killing something local.
hn_throwaway_99|4 years ago
That is, in the US the vision is generally something along the lines of Amazon vs. small independent stores a la "You've Got Mail".
In France, there are big, multi-day book fairs that take up large swaths of major cities. I visited Lyon during the Quais du Polar festival years ago, which is a 3 or 4 day event focused just on the crime fiction genre. I've never experienced anything like that in the US.
supertrope|4 years ago
threatofrain|4 years ago
In modern times, this is an incidental cost of access.
There's also some understandable doubts about the long term results of this tradeoff, as it is suspected that the final stage of this play is to raise prices again, thereby squeezing access up to some "optimal" equilibrium.
jollybean|4 years ago
Walmart has increased the standard of living of the lower class quit considerably.
In the 1980's everything was kind of expensive. From 1990-2010 with the rise of real globalisation it was just unbelievable what could be had for a a few dollars.
I think most people would notice it if Walmart were to suddenly disappear.
That said, anything cultural is probably worth preserving, usually we don't price in those things well enough.
Also, 'quality' and other intangibles don't fare well into the equation.
So it's a matter of being really smart with the regulation, and hopefully sorting out the tax regimes as well so as to not allow the 'Ireland Tax Haven' scenarios.
Hokusai|4 years ago
And it makes the world more fragile and less diverse and interesting. Capitalism is founded on the idea of many producers competing for many customers.
Amazon model steps as middleman so producers have only one buyer, and consumers have only one seller. That gives them a lot of power to control prices, and what is produced or consumed.
markus_zhang|4 years ago
Although I agree with this, but I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing for the customers. Some industries are best centralized and some are not. For the business of selling books I think it's best to have a lot of sellers.
xattt|4 years ago
Would you be able to elaborate on this or was it hyperbole? Personal experience is where there is passenger rail service are inherently more interesting.
idiotsecant|4 years ago
This is probably true, but also probably inevitable. As the world shrinks we lose local flavor but gain a more commonly held homogeneous culture. I'm not sure that this is new, just faster than it was before.
n8cpdx|4 years ago
Another way of phrasing that: France’s local book sellers are so bad at serving their customers that an American company that’s existed less than 30 years can totally undercut them, despite the local sellers’ massive advantage in understanding their local communities and culture.
I don’t know why folks are so willing to jump to protect small businesses that don’t do a good job. Local is fundamentally a good place to be. Local is an advantage. (Amazon knows this; see how they’re using Whole Foods to create a local presence and _improve_ their service). Large businesses got to be large because they were better at serving their customers than the small businesses.
My personal experience is that the small businesses are just worse at providing consistent, friendly, high quality service. They are rewarded by the market accordingly.
Government protection for heritage is maybe ok, but protecting lazy, self-entitled business owners from competitive market forces is not. If there’s really a problem with shipping costs that they desperately need to fix, they can just make postage cheaper for books, similar to the USPS media mail program.
hypertele-Xii|4 years ago
Centralization is also densification, which has merits backed by scientific research. It's, in theory, better for everyone - well, for everyone else.
Doesn't it increase overall happiness?
baby|4 years ago
black_13|4 years ago
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chrisseaton|4 years ago
Who's judging the quality, if not the consumers?
If people loved French content they'd buy it in droves from Amazon anyway. If they don't... why not?
Waterluvian|4 years ago
Shadonototra|4 years ago
The reason of the downfall of our civilization is because of that specific problem, you think about everything as a business, including countries
passivate|4 years ago
baud147258|4 years ago
kwertyoowiyop|4 years ago
anaganisk|4 years ago
coolso|4 years ago
WalterBright|4 years ago
I started a Biden collection, but only one book so far. Things that make you go hmmmm....
matheusmoreira|4 years ago
rafaelturk|4 years ago
It will not prevent customers to stop shopping online, so no effect for legacy bookstore.s
Like most goverment proposed solutions: This will actually create a new problem not fix the origintal intented cause.
Shadonototra|4 years ago
Dematerialized everything has its problems too
But why bother with the social aspect of things, we are all enslaved consumerist robots anyways..
makeitdouble|4 years ago
The point is not on online vs brick and mortar, it’s to prevent Amazon from providing a lower price by eating shipping costs. Keep in mind they can’t reduce the book cost when it’s new (it’s a French law), so shipping price was their only lever.
thr0wawayf00|4 years ago
ineedasername|4 years ago
makeitdouble|4 years ago
If Amazon has to start charging for shipping, they will be charging the same as every other bookstore in total, making them just another option among the others. Some will still prefer Amazon, but there is no downside anymore to chose another online shop (and there’s plenty big and reputable ones).
waynesonfire|4 years ago
Similar to what fb is dealing with. They would welcome any legislation to hamper social media competition since they could then stop buying up potential threats.
GekkePrutser|4 years ago
Most of their paperbacks are printed on demand. Kinda cool and pretty good for the environment IMO. Never a book being printed that's not needed. But smaller stores can't compete with that.
xcambar|4 years ago
Another option would have been to support local bookstores by subsidizing transportation, which would have allowed them to lower the price to the point of being competitive with Amazon.
But I guess that using public money to help local businesses is not as good as getting the customers to pay and help Amazon at the same time, in the eyes of Macron.
reissbaker|4 years ago
ur-whale|4 years ago
Much more likely, we're witnessing a good old-fashioned lobbying effort bearing fruits at the expense of the consumer and in favor of a small but politically connected group of businesses.
r00fus|4 years ago
Isn't there a better way, perhaps based on physical presence?
ec109685|4 years ago
phtrivier|4 years ago
GekkePrutser|4 years ago
If anything the online market in France has more competition than most countries.
Nasrudith|4 years ago
fallingknife|4 years ago
I am very surprised at how low this number is.
Bayart|4 years ago
The only websites that give me an experience remotely similar are those of old, specialized publishers. Case in point (in French) :
- https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/collections
- https://www.droz.org/france/section/Collections
- https://www.honorechampion.com/fr/29-champion
jjgreen|4 years ago
themodelplumber|4 years ago
silentsea90|4 years ago
arthurcolle|4 years ago
coldtea|4 years ago
I also rather not have the book industry of a country dependent on the whims (and VC/bottomless pit of money to stay "competitive" while they crush a market) of an American company. Even more so one with no culture and no respect for the book as a work of the spirit whatsoever.
So there's that.
hh3k0|4 years ago
It's called competitiveness, baby, and it's easy peasy lemon squeezy!
downWidOutaFite|4 years ago
In the last 4 quarters Lagardere lost $376M on $4B in revenue. While Amazon exploded to $29B on $443B in revenue. So more like 100 times bigger.
newsclues|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
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amelius|4 years ago
ekianjo|4 years ago
coldtea|4 years ago
belval|4 years ago
fallingknife|4 years ago
konschubert|4 years ago
intricatedetail|4 years ago
sokoloff|4 years ago
rossamurphy|4 years ago
Interesting how Amazon charge a “centime”, which hasn’t been legal tender in France since 2002…
pyuser583|4 years ago
It’s funny how “book selling” went from being Amazon’s core business to a distraction.
Edit: I recommend EBay if you want to buy a physical tome.
president|4 years ago
oh_sigh|4 years ago
ritonlajoie|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
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caslon|4 years ago
TrainedMonkey|4 years ago
The other side is a bit more complex, but Amazon is definitely subsidizing shipping costs from their yearly subscription and seller fees. The argument is that this is unfair to smaller companies which don't have capital to burn... and that is kind of true? I think there are valid points on both sides.
WalterBright|4 years ago
The fashionable thing to say, indeed!
Yet the anyones are all covertly buying from Amazon, working for Amazon, and investing in Amazon.
tshaddox|4 years ago
woodruffw|4 years ago
More generally, my limited understanding of French politics is that they have a very strong agricultural interest that's disproportionate to the populace, similar to the US. The limited news I read about French domestic politics indicates that their government generally accommodates and subsidizes non-urban citizens, much like ours does.
Edit: Here's the (Amazon) quote about rural concerns:
> Amazon said the legislation, adopted by parliament but not yet enacted, would punish those in rural areas who cannot easily visit a bookstore and rely on delivery.
bryanrasmussen|4 years ago
how much of a difference does urban / rural divide make in France regarding such effects?
unknown|4 years ago
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waynesonfire|4 years ago
Zababa|4 years ago
As for the current state of the "book industry" where I live: you have 4 choices, either Amazon, an independant bookstore, Decitre (a local bookstore chain), or FNAC (basically Amazon but with physical buildings). Independant bookstores are usually great at recommandations (way better than anything Amazon can do for example), but some of them are just a small-size FNAC, which kind of removes the point of an independant bookstore. As someone that almost only buy books when I know which book I want to buy, so I don't benefit a lot from independant bookstores, but people around me like them a lot.
908B64B197|4 years ago
https://www.amazon.com/ulp/view/
EastOfTruth|4 years ago
74d-fe6-2c6|4 years ago
benreesman|4 years ago
“Capitalism” is what people do when they’re not having sex (and sometimes even then). It is the most powerful economic engine we know about.
“Socialism” is the discipline of maximizing overall human welfare within the economic limits.
The engine and the steering wheel so to speak. I’m willing to bet those definitions are in no dictionary, but the basic point is roughly what no constitution has yet to get right.
The tricky bit is avoiding capture, and I’m optimistic we can do this without shooting all the lobbyists, but it would be a bargain even at that price.
_vbnz|4 years ago
Capitalism is when people does stuff.
Capitalism is a system where the Earth's resources and means of production (factories, machines, etc.) are privately owned.
You can have voluntary exchange without that - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism
AniseAbyss|4 years ago
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aborsy|4 years ago
Speaking of “culture” or religion, some practices are bad and better to die. We don’t live in caves anymore after all. It might feel nice to talk about unique culture and identity of isolated tribes in Amazon (the rainforest, not the company); trust me, you don’t want to be in some of these places if you are a woman or disabled.
Local shops need to find creative ways to do business (coffee offers, meet ups etc), instead of lobbying that governments kills competition. Or do something else.
forgotmyoldname|4 years ago
Then 5 years later they'll complain that wages are down, local shops are closed up, the quality of products they bought went to hell, and the only thing their town has is a raggedy Walmart.
It's kind of hard to compete with a multinational trillion dollar corporation that actively seeks to crush your small business through unreasonably low prices and third world manufacturing just to eliminate future competition and secure a profit stream. And now that people thought they'd saved their town from Walmart, Amazon is coming in to clean out the rest.
anticodon|4 years ago
It's so sad.