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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 5883337" data-attributes="member: 177">Two wrongs don't make a right, so to speak.There is a strong argument that Amazon's approach was anti-competitive.That does not make Apple and publishers colluding on pricing legal.Now, my understanding may be flawed, so if someone knows better please correct me.  From what I have read in a few sources now, it isn't the "agency model" that's the issue, but how they moved into the agency model - with a group discussion about where prices should be.  My understanding is that if Apple had simply offered the agency model, and the publishers had moved to it independently, that would have been legal.  Holding a discussion of the form, "using this model, if we all price at this point, we can beat Amazon," is itself anti-competitive.This is not necessarily a case where Amazon was a bad guy, and Apple the good-guy savior of the masses.  Both Apple and Amazon can be in the wrong, here.It seems to me that a major part of the problem is that the market is still very young - and the only ones who are willing to really push on devices are the ones trying to sell the books, so they attempt to lock the user into a proprietary marketplace.Once devices are produced in sufficient quantity that they are affordable on their own, without the producer having to sell below cost, you can (should, even) decouple the device from the content market.  I can buy game titles for my computer form anywhere.  I can buy movies for my TV from anywhere.  Why must I be locked into one market for digital music or books?  That's the ultimate source of the anti-competitive pricing, I think.</blockquote>

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