I think for Amazon's customers, it offers a kind of addictive service - the ability to shop without leaving your house, the ability to read without going to a bookstore or a library.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Amazon is a marvelous conglomeration and delivery system for products of every imaginable function. But the book 'business' is really not the same as the sale of lawn rakes or adapters for telephones.
To many book professionals, Amazon is a ruthless predator. The company claims to want a more literate world - and it came along when the book world was in distress, offering a vital new source of sales.
Like most people, there are things I love about Amazon. It's cheap, it's fast, and it's at my doorstep. But Amazon will never replace the important role my local indie plays in my community.
The Internet rewards scale; by trading higher up-front costs for lower marginal cost, market leaders can invest in better technology and service. As a result, there is nothing online that is both great in quality and small in scale. Amazon wasn't originally a better bookstore than the small shops we mourn, but it is now.
Just as it can be addictive to be in a real world bookstore or library, it's the same on the Web.
Amazon.com strives to be the e-commerce destination where consumers can find and discover anything they want to buy online.
I use Amazon for books. I use Amazon for loads of other things. I regard Amazon as a source, as I think a lot of other people do.
I'm addicted to email, but other than that, there are practical things - being able to buy a book on the internet that you can't find in your local bookshop. This could be a lifeline if you live further from the sources.
Amazon has historically been a bully, and I don't shop there. But I love Goodreads. For the record.
I've drunk Amazon's free Diet Coke. Nothing makes more sense to me than a company trying to make bookselling into a profitable business. I'm not anti-Amazon, and I'm not pro-publishers either. I'm pro-books.
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