Who? Me? Apologize to a corporate monster?

[fpb]

Yes. I distrust corporations on principle, but when you have to, you have to. Yesterday I addressed readers to an Amazon-baiting cartoon - just because I found it excruciatingly funny. Today I got the last of a lot of six rare books I had ordered from Amazon two or three weeks ago, and which I did not expect until April. All the books have been

Comments

[shezan]

See, this is indeed EXACTLY why I can't curse Amazon to kingdom come. It's all very well to say you've got to protect bricks and mortar bookstores, but even when they're not the iniquitous Piccadilly Waterstone's, home to Philistines on 7 floors (this must be the only instance where I mourn a rag store that's been replaced by a bookseller; it's usually the other way around) how many find you exactly what you need, sometimes from the other end of the world?(And from actual bookstores as well?)

I have been broke, which lured me away from John Sandoe's and Heywood Hill. These days, it's more the huge hassle of ordering from them which gets me back to Amazon.

[fpb]

Most of these were out of print. The rarest was Aurel Kolnai's The War against the West, the unsurpassed summary of Nazi thought and intellectual life from 1938, which I used to have years ago. And that only cost me some sixty pounds including delivery - which, for a major rarity like that, is a miracle. And it was from a real bookshop, as you say - in Oklahoma City! Can you imagine doing anything like that before Amazon? Or bookstores in provincial towns hanging on to unusual books for the chance that someone from the other end of the Earth might want a copy?

[shezan]

I know! Some bookshop in Australia sent me a first edition of Mary Renault's Charioteer for five quid! Minus dustjacket, but still!

I used to buy from bibliofind.com until about ten years ago, when Amazon bought the platform and network. I was majorly annoyed at the time, but I was wrong - if anything they've made it more efficient. I only go to bookfinder.com or abebooks as a last resort.

I remember when Amazon bought bibliofind.com, about ten years ag from whom I used to buy these things.

[inverarity]

I don't think Amazon is monstrous or "evil" in any real sense, but I've already posted on their dust-up with MacMillan, and why it will be bad for publishers, authors, and readers if Amazon wins.

That said, while I can't blame anyone for trying to take advantage of a pricing error, they really shouldn't cry when Amazon catches the error and says, "Nice try."

[fpb]

Actually, Amazon can't, and I suspect that they will soon find that out in court. There is plenty of legal precedent for the principle that once a price list is published, even if it is wrong, the seller has to adhere to it. It would be too easy, otherwise, for sellers to swindle buyers, especially over long distances. A few years ago, here in Britain, the Hoover Corporation was nearly bankrupted by a similar dumb mistake, but they had to go on with it.

[inverarity]

Amazon has already canceled the orders. I understand there's a class action suit already being filed, but I doubt the plaintiffs will win.

I don't know what British laws are like, but while we do have laws against "bait-and-switch" in the U.S. (which is probably the premise on which Amazon is being sued), the courts usually rule in favor of the company. If the local car dealer prints an ad with a misplaced decimal point, you can't go to the dealership and expect to drive away with a car for 10 bucks.