Hostage Situation Ongoing

It has been more than a full moon cycle since one was able to purchase books published by Hachette in a reasonable manner from Amazon, which — despite selling books largely as an accident of history, and now essentially vestigially — has a forty percent share of new book sales in the U.S. But this hostage situation will apparently see only one resolution: the complete and utter capitulation of Hachette to whatever Amazon is demanding. Russ Grandinetti, a Kindle executive, told the Wall Street Journal that Amazon “was willing to suffer some damage to its reputation and was simply doing what is ‘in the long-term interest of our customers.’” Books were nice while they lasted, right?