[p2p-research] Teaching the market a lesson

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Teaching the market a lesson
via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 11/14/09

Some book publishers don't like the Kindle. Either they're afraid of it
or they've crunched the numbers and they don't like what they see.
(Some days, 95% of the top selling Kindle titles are free...
demonstrating that digital goods with zero marginal cost and plentiful
substitutes tend to move to zero in price).

Worried about the medium, they hold back, delay or even refuse to
support it.

Which is fine if you have market power, but you likely don't. No
publisher does, certainly. The Beatles couldn't stop iTunes from
changing the record business by sitting out the platform, and there's
no book publisher who can stop the Kindle alone.

It's tempting to look at a high-momentum market innovation, something
that brings efficiency but leaves change in its wake, and try to stop
it single-handedly. Tempting, but not so smart, I think. The market
waits for no one.

The alternative to joining in is to sit out the game loudly. Don't just
hold back your support, organize your peers. Create a (sometimes
illegal) coordinated effort to stop innovation. I'm not going to bet
much on your efforts, but it will certainly outperform a solo effort.

Quiet, passive-aggressive whining in the corner is both annoying and
ineffective.

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