I agree with Wired: Jeff Bezos should send AG Eric Holder a Christmas card. Bezos and his Amazon are possibly the single biggest winners from the DOJ's antitrust lawsuit against Apple.
Bezos is even smart enough to have an anti-Steve Jobs, low-key reaction:
Officially, Amazon’s response to today’s news is fairly measured. “This
is a big win for Kindle owners, and we look forward to being allowed to
lower prices on more Kindle books,” writes Amazon spokesman Drew
Herdener in an e-mail.
Wired spills out the details.
Since nobody can conduct "most favored nation" deals with publishers, Amazon wins the price-setting war due to its Walmart-like volume.
Second, Amazon looks like a white knight, at least to readers.
Third, because of 1 and 2, Amazon will probably become even more Walmart-like in price setting.
Losers? Besides Apple, possibly book authors. Very possibly Barnes & Noble and others who can't keep up.
Possible losers? We the readers. Definitely we the readers who want to avoid escalation of the infowars. This will certainly give Amazon more leverage with the Kindle, and the Kindle Fire. Expect to see Bezos do a lot of "bundling," and per the Walmart analogy, some loss-leader deals, even.
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