{"id":253,"date":"2007-10-25T13:37:13","date_gmt":"2007-10-25T20:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2007\/10\/25\/market-choice\/"},"modified":"2007-10-25T13:37:13","modified_gmt":"2007-10-25T20:37:13","slug":"market-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2007\/10\/market-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Market Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a <a href=\"http:\/\/radar.oreilly.com\/archives\/2007\/10\/books_on_the_bo.html\">fas\u00adcin\u00adat\u00ading piece<\/a>  dis\u00adcuss\u00ading how fixed prices on books in Ger\u00admany was actu\u00adally push\u00ading prices down (con\u00adtrary to eco\u00adnom\u00adic the\u00adory), while sup\u00adport\u00ading a wide range of booksellers.<\/p>\n<p>When I was last in Ger\u00admany, apart from my usu\u00adal beef about Ger\u00adman book\u00adsellers not tak\u00ading cred\u00adit cards, I found no reas\u00adon to com\u00adplain about the range of books that was avail\u00adable. Chil\u00addren\u2019s books are more expens\u00adive than I\u2019m used to here, but a lot of that is also because most chil\u00addren\u2019s books are only avail\u00adable in hard\u00adback and thus inher\u00adently more expens\u00adive. Paper\u00adbacks seemed reas\u00adon\u00adably priced in gen\u00ader\u00adal, and of good typo\u00adgraph\u00adic\u00adal quality.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Peter Brant\u00adley has some ques\u00adtions at the end of his piece, which I think can be applied not only to books, but also tele\u00advi\u00adsion, news, indeed many aspects of what is com\u00admonly called \u201ccul\u00adture\u201d. When the mass media and mass enter\u00adtain\u00adment industry are des\u00adper\u00adately try\u00ading to increase rat\u00adings by cater\u00ading to the fads and whims of the mass mar\u00adket, is this a \u201crace to the bot\u00adtom\u201d as has been pos\u00adtu\u00adlated? Is the long tail suf\u00adfi\u00adcient to enable people with diverse interests (and that\u2019s all of us at some stage or anoth\u00ader) to have those needs met, those itches scratched? How do people find those groups, if they don\u2019t know what to look&nbsp;for?&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Choice is import\u00adant, know\u00ading that you have choices is even more import\u00adant. It\u2019s a bit like free speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a fas\u00adcin\u00adat\u00ading piece dis\u00adcuss\u00ading how fixed prices on books in Ger\u00admany was actu\u00adally push\u00ading prices down (con\u00adtrary to eco\u00adnom\u00adic the\u00adory), while sup\u00adport\u00ading a wide range of book\u00adsellers. When I was last in Ger\u00admany, apart from my usu\u00adal beef about Ger\u00adman book\u00adsellers not tak\u00ading cred\u00adit cards, I found no reas\u00adon to com\u00adplain about the range \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2007\/10\/market-choice\/\" class=\"more-link\">Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cMar\u00adket Choice\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-rants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}