It comes down to a question of definition. Is it a monopoly if there is literally zero cost to entering a market, but the market conditions make it almost certain that you'll fail?
Hatchette and any other publisher could stop selling their books to Amazon tomorrow. You could still buy them in paper from loads of physical stores, and you could still buy their ebooks from dozens of places, including little-known and difficult-to-find resellers like Apple and Google. But if they lost, say, 40% of sales, would we call Amazon a monopoly?
I don't know. My inclination is to be pretty conservative in applying heavy-handed regulatory remedies. That's a big hammer, and it's one I'd rather not use on a whim, and right now, I think it's still far too easy to compete with Amazon on its core business for this to be an option I'm ready for. But I'm not sure how hard it would be to convince me otherwise in the future.
Maybe the kindle is just a desperate attempt to save some of the book business for Amazon. You are thinking too short term. Sure, maybe it will be a quasi monopoly for a while. But in the long run, why should people stick with the kindle? Other convenient devices and services will crop up making it seem very inconvenient to be tied to one vendor.
Hatchette and any other publisher could stop selling their books to Amazon tomorrow. You could still buy them in paper from loads of physical stores, and you could still buy their ebooks from dozens of places, including little-known and difficult-to-find resellers like Apple and Google. But if they lost, say, 40% of sales, would we call Amazon a monopoly?
I don't know. My inclination is to be pretty conservative in applying heavy-handed regulatory remedies. That's a big hammer, and it's one I'd rather not use on a whim, and right now, I think it's still far too easy to compete with Amazon on its core business for this to be an option I'm ready for. But I'm not sure how hard it would be to convince me otherwise in the future.