MacMillan (including Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, St. Martin’s Press, and Henry Holt) is going head-to-head with Amazon over pricing, with the result that Apple’s sudden appearance with a more flexible price structure has tipped the scale. Although the “news” is that Amazon has pulled MacMillan books from its store, I’m guessing the actual scenario was more like MacMillan saying, “If you won’t play ball, Apple will,” and Amazon saying, “Don’t let the screen door hit you on your way out.” Bluff and counter-bluff, except MacMillan (so long as they’ve got Apple) can live without Amazon, and Amazon can’t live without MacMillan.
I feel for you, Jeff, but you lost this whole stand-off the minute Steve refused to back you up on it. And he’s your competition—he doesn’t have any reason to back you up. Even if you pretend it was always intended as just a “gesture,” you shouldn’t have tried to play it tough. You’re acting like a mob goon at a diplomat’s poker game. And the other players are all eyes wide-open.
On the other hand, Wired magazine has written an incredibly in-depth analysis of how Apple altered the landscape with the iPhone, which industry pundits are saying is what they’re doing now with the iPad—it’s just that they’re not marketing to the average user what’s truly important about it. Which is a polite way of saying, “They think you’re too dumb to understand.”
(What they really mean is these extremely important negotiations are going on behind closed doors, and Jobs is not about to get the buying public involved in them. It’s hard to bluff your opponent when the cards are jumping out of your hand shrieking, “This is what I’M going to do!” It doesn’t matter if your opponent can see more of your master-plan than your cards can. You’re risking a lot on your opponent agreeing with you that your cards don’t know the true score, particularly when it’s not in their best interests to do so, particularly when your cards might very well find out more than you expect and take offense at the insult to their intelligence. Again. I really don’t think Apple should be treating potential customers like they’re stupid enough to pony up $800 for a desktop—but then again, Jobs is a pretty darn successful marketer, and maybe what he knows that I don’t is that the bulk of them are.)
Hey, remember our conversation about workspaces? Well, get this. What do you suppose happens to it in an earthquake? Does it float in a tsunami? Would it become a snowball in an avalanche? Could you get one disguised as a giant peach?
And this is perhaps the most amazing news of all: did you know the Internet is made of cats? Wow, does that explain why mine are so tired they have to sleep all the time.
UPDATE: I have long suspected that everyone out there reads my blog before they come up with their own opinions, but now I know for sure:
Gizmodo.
John Scalzi (via my sys admin via Tim O’Reilly on Twitter).
John Scalzi again, with hot sauce.
Charlie Stross.
And someone’s recommended the Book Depository to replace Amazon, which we will add to our list of bookstores, except virtual.
