After a 16-month investigation, the House Judiciary Committee has issued a 449-page report on the extensive ways in which Big Tech companies have become abusive monopolies. It says, “To put it simply, companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons. Although these firms have delivered clear benefits to society, the dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google has come at a price.” The report says the companies “engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves.” The report is signed only by Democrats on the subcommittee that prepared it.
On Amazon specifically, the report says that the online retailer accounts for over half of all print book sales and over 80 percent of ebook sales in the US. Elsewhere, it reveals that Amazon owns 74 percent of book sales on the site, whereas third-party sellers account for 26 percent of sales. It mainly emphasizes how Amazon uses most-favored-nation clauses to restrict competition and maintain control over its suppliers (publishers and self-publishing authors) as well as third-party sellers. In other words: no one is ever allowed to offer a better price outside of Amazon. According to one publisher, Amazon does retaliate “to coerce publishers to accept contractual terms that impose substantial penalties for promoting competition.” Retaliation involves removing the buy and pre-order buttons from products, or showing titles as out of stock or with delayed shipping times. (This happened during publicized confrontations between at least two of the Big Five publishers and Amazon.)
Proposed solutions: prohibit Amazon from selling its own products (often created based on information gained from a company selling on Amazon) and end the requirement that disputes go to arbitration.
Amazon responded to the report by saying that “the presumption that success can only be the result of anti-competitive behavior is simply wrong.” It also said, “Misguided interventions in the free market would kill off independent retailers and punish consumers by forcing small businesses out of popular online stores, raising prices, and reducing consumer choice and convenience.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
