In its inception, as a bookseller, Amazon enabled publishers to break through the hold that bookstores had on the success of their books. When readers could order books online from a store that just took and filled orders, the major bookstores lost control. Publishers were not stuck with book returns, a protection clause that bookstores demanded. Buyers and sellers were matched through one source without the traditional big orders for books that might or might not sell.

Has Amazon flipped on competition with its new approach? p-687