[HN Gopher] Google is giving Amazon a leg up in digital book sales
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Google is giving Amazon a leg up in digital book sales
Author : bookofjoe
Score : 93 points
Date : 2025-05-17 11:15 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| bookofjoe wrote:
| https://archive.ph/7sUdc
| latein wrote:
| nice one and thank you...
| palata wrote:
| > Google said Amazon doesn't have a special deal. The company and
| Amazon declined to offer specifics.
|
| > Google and Amazon say the payment options aren't new. Google
| said Amazon was among a few companies that had been able to offer
| non-Google payment options for their existing customers, under a
| test program.
|
| "It's not a special deal. It's just that only a few companies can
| benefit from it."
|
| Who are they kidding, seriously?
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| I thank the US for voluntarily deciding to run the experiment
| on what decades of voluntary non enforcement of competition
| laws will do to companies. I suggest we have the results now
| and it could safely be stopped.
| bigbadfeline wrote:
| You thank Peter "Competition IsForLosers" Thiel and humbly
| ask him to stop "the experiment"? You know what he's gonna
| say, right?
| rs186 wrote:
| The time comes when we need to define what "special" means. To
| me, if "only a few" companies can do this, among possibly
| millions of companies that put their apps on the store, it
| seems very special.
| palata wrote:
| Agreed, it is obviously special treatment.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I wonder, will they release the names of all these special
| companies?
| bwb wrote:
| Ya at the very least they could extend it to all book sellers
| like Kobo, bookshop.org, etc
| some_random wrote:
| I suspect it's something along the lines of "it's not
| special, you just need to be making enough money that we can
| justify giving you a rep specifically to manage and execute
| this deal".
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| It's pretty clear to me that it means they still pay the same
| 30% cut but just have the UX option to buy in one click.
| criddell wrote:
| The article also says:
|
| > Amazon doesn't seem to be paying Google a fee
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| It's a supposition based on nothing at all.
| xp84 wrote:
| If Amazon were happy selling books for zero or less than
| zero profit, as they'd have to be if this idea that
| they're somehow still paying Google requires, then they
| would have also been doing it on iOS too, wouldn't they?
| That's "all" Apple has been demanding this whole time.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| So is the assurance they're paying Google, unless you
| have a citation to provide?
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Google said Amazon was among a few companies that had been
| able to offer non-Google payment options for their existing
| customers, under a test program.
|
| "Test program", what a bunch of corporate shitspeak.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| It's not a special deal. Google would love to have a deal with
| Amazon.
|
| It's simply that Amazon is one of the few companies that can
| get away with not paying Google anything. _Amazon_ is the big
| dog in this context.
|
| If Google were to cut off Amazon from search results, people
| would just do all their shopping (and searches) directly on
| Amazon and cut Google out of the process entirely, and Google
| would lose hundreds of millions in ad revenue for the ads it
| show sin Amazon-related google searches. Amazon could even
| promote competitors to Google on their website just for the
| hell of it (or more likely in exchange for $$$ or stock), and
| Google would start seeing material drops in usage (material
| meaning large enough for investors to care about).
| saurik wrote:
| A special deal isn't somehow not a special deal just because
| you don't have leverage and are kind of forced to provide
| it...
| Henchman21 wrote:
| They baldfaced lie to the public because there are exactly zero
| consequences for doing so. One of the dilemmas of modern
| existence, IMO, is this general comfort with _lying_ as if it
| were _no big deal_.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I'm surprised this was authorized to be published at all given
| that the WaPo is owned by Lord Bezos.
| fooker wrote:
| Why would Bezos not want you to know that he has made a deal
| beneficial for him and his Amazon stocks?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Because that would draw attention to a practice that might
| possibly be anti competitive.
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Don't pretend he cares to hide his behavior. He's openly
| lobbying to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional.
| guywithahat wrote:
| I feel like Bezos has been pretty hands-off with the wapo,
| excluding Arc XP
| pixelesque wrote:
| Other than the Opinions section:
|
| https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-bezos-opinion-
| tru...
| chucksmash wrote:
| And nixing the endorsement in the US Presidential election:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/10/25/washi
| n...
| Henchman21 wrote:
| Then you haven't paid close attention. He didn't permit the
| paper to endorse for President. For fucks sake.
| kirubakaran wrote:
| "I don't get it. Why are they confessing?"
|
| "They're not confessing. They're bragging."
|
| -- The Big Short
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| > That math is why many book apps like those from Bookshop, Kobo
| and Barnes & Noble's Nook haven't typically let you buy e-books
| and audiobooks from their iPhone or Android apps. Instead, you
| must leave the app, buy from the bookstore's website and hop back
| into the app to read or listen to it.
|
| Not accurate, at least for Kobo. They accepted Google's billing
| system, so buying from the Kobo app on Android hooks into your
| Google Wallet billing method and works without an issue.
|
| It does mean you can't use Kobo gift cards towards purchases made
| on your phone, but you can always pop onto the website to do
| that.
|
| I'm actually really glad that Kobo just did that, even if Google
| is taking a ridiculous cut. Anecdotally I'm buying way more
| impulse books on Kobo (i.e. a book on sale for $2.99 or less)
| since they got the app working with Google Wallet.
| jorvi wrote:
| Why not add your payment method to Kobo's app?
|
| It's very little effort for doing your part in fighting the
| oligopoly.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Google Play billing is the only option in the Kobo Android
| app.
| jorvi wrote:
| Oh, I misunderstood. I thought Kobo added the Google Pay
| (Wallet Pay? Google Wallet? God knows with the constant
| name changes) button / system to the app in addition to
| their own payment flow. Damn.
| glitchc wrote:
| That does seem odd given that Google is liable to take a
| 30% cut of each purchase.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| It isn't "odd" it's the only way they are permitted by
| Google to sell their product. Yes, it's farcical and
| should be illegal.
|
| https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-
| developer/answ...
| lupusreal wrote:
| It sucks because it means users can't buy books from Kobo on
| the app unless they give Google their payment info. I don't
| want Google to have my payment info, least of all so I can buy
| something from a completely different company.
|
| If Google insisted on being an _option_ in the app it would be
| relatively fine. Users who prefer Googles payment system could
| chose it, but Google doesn 't want users to have that choice.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I already gave Google my payment info, though, because I use
| Google Wallet. And I actually find that _more_ secure,
| because IIRC the credit card number that is stored in Google
| Wallet is a virtual credit card number, not the real number
| that is printed on the physical card (which Rakuten Kobo
| _would_ store).
|
| Even when I buy books from Kobo, I never stored my credit
| card with them. I always bought gift cards and loaded the
| balance onto my account. That would occasionally get
| cumbersome, since the only vendor for those cards in the US
| used to be Wal-Mart, until they discontinued their
| relationship. Now I think Kobo might sell them directly out
| of Amazon.com--but either way, for the odd $2 and $3
| purchases that I do on impulse buys (because a book may be on
| sale), just having it go through Google Wallet is much
| easier.
| kubav027 wrote:
| My bank gives me virtual credit cards. Google is just
| unnecessary expensive middle man. But I live in Europe so
| US situation might be different.
| bluGill wrote:
| Why would I want a virtual credit card - US law gives me
| strong fraud protection and so if my number is
| compromised I just call my bank and dispute the charges
| and then I get a new number.
|
| Though I've never had the above happen. I've had a few
| times where my number was compromised but the bank found
| out and gave me a new card before whoever got the number
| was able to use it.
| xp84 wrote:
| It's great and I'd say essential to have those
| protections, but a virtual card makes that whole thing
| much more efficient plus doesn't cause you to have to
| update your card on file with all the "good" vendors
| where you have it stored.
|
| You can proactively decide when a card will expire and
| how much it can be billed ("Sure, NY Times, I'll take a
| subscription for the trial offer of $4 a month, so let's
| make sure this card only allows a charge of $4 every
| month and/or expires when that offer expires.")
| lupusreal wrote:
| I agree. In 20 years I've only had a single fraudulent
| charge on my card. I called my credit union and it was
| taken care of immediately. I don't need more, I don't
| want more. Google is trying to make me afraid to get my
| personal information.
| xp84 wrote:
| > not the real number that is printed on the physical card
| (which Rakuten Kobo would store).
|
| Citation needed!
|
| In 2014 I worked for a small, unimportant ecommerce
| retailer. We migrated at around that time to storing only a
| token, using our payment processor (Braintree at the time)
| - and no longer kept any card numbers in our database
| whatsoever. If someone had dumped our 'credit_cards' table
| after that migration, they'd have nothing but useless
| garbage (the token could only be used by our own merchant
| account). I think even Braintree didn't need to store the
| card number itself either, but I'm not so sure of their
| internals.
|
| Storing a payment card number in your database is
| considered an incredibly bad practice, is not PCI
| compliant, and probably violates other important
| "compliance" things you have to regularly certify as well.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > It sucks because it means users can't buy books from Kobo
| on the app unless they give Google their payment info.
|
| Google _having_ my payment info is no worry at all to me.
| Google is on a very short list of companies whose defense
| against hacking and social engineering attacks I trust.
|
| Google seeing every one of my purchases? Not a fan. I don't
| think that's the argument you're making here, though.
| bluGill wrote:
| It is a problem for me. Google is reasonable enough, but I
| do not want it to be too easy to make a mistake. I want
| those extra seconds it takes to type in my payment
| information to think again do I really need this thing.
| More than once I've realized the "toy" I was interested in
| wasn't really in my current budget and abandoned the
| purchase. I never turned on amazon one-click shopping for
| similar reasons. I want buying things I need easy, but not
| too easy.
| resize2996 wrote:
| Yes. Fraud protection for online purchases is fine. I have
| certain cards set up in a way that I will basically hand
| them out to anyone. Data protection is not a solved problem
| in that way.
| lupusreal wrote:
| I'm not buying anything from Google so there is NO reason
| for them to have my payment info. Fuck them.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > With its own one-click e-book and audiobook purchases in
| Android apps, Amazon doesn't seem to be paying Google a fee. That
| gives Amazon a rare privilege among digital booksellers: It can
| turn a profit from selling e-books and audiobooks in a smartphone
| app.
|
| So, an article entirely built on speculation.
|
| Speculations refuted by Google: "Google said Amazon doesn't have
| a special deal.".
|
| What's more likely is that the share of users who buy books
| exclusively from the mobile Kindle app is extremely low, and that
| therefore it's worth selling at a loss or no profit for Amazon,
| to retain the customer experience.
|
| It's also likely that Amazon doesn't have a special deal with
| Google, but has a special deal with book publishers, which means
| it's able to turn a profit even with the 30% app store cut.
| xp84 wrote:
| Why do you cling to this idea despite the evidence contrary? If
| they were happy giving 30% to Google and thus likely losing
| money on every sale, why wouldn't they have been happy to do
| the same with Apple? Instead we saw for a decade plus that they
| weren't willing to, to the extent of having a bad user
| experience.
| criddell wrote:
| I'm guessing Amazon is large enough that they qualify for the
| Google Play Media Experience Program and pay far less than 30%.
| I believe they are paying at most a 10% fee to Google.
| oldpersonintx2 wrote:
| Anna's Archive still charges what it always has
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Seems pretty safe to assume that all the big platforms are
| colluding and scamming at this point. Why not, nobody is going to
| stop them.
| davidw wrote:
| I have gone back to using the local library a bunch. They have
| a 'request a book' feature that usually gets me the book in a
| reasonable time frame.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| And the book publishers tried to ruin that too. Get people to
| buy ereaders -> let massive libraries only have 5 "copies" of
| an ebook -> people shrug and pay $5 from the kindle store
| instead of waiting.
|
| Basically priming a generation against libraries.
|
| And then the ebook readers have these invented gripes why
| paper books no longer work for them and they must engage with
| the walled garden system in order to read. Some of it is
| truly pedantic stuff like "book too heavy."
| bluGill wrote:
| If I'm going on vacation a book is too heavy. But most of
| the time I'm not carrying a weeks worth of books that
| hopefully it isn't raining and thus I never open those
| books. Even when that is a real worry, I find that there
| are more free books around such that I don't need to buy
| them anyway.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > Basically priming a generation against libraries.
|
| You have left off the abusive terms under which the ebooks
| are leased to the libraries.
| breakingcups wrote:
| $550 for perpetual access to 1 copy which may only be
| lent to 1 person at a time.. Yep, abusive.
| xp84 wrote:
| It's even more gross in my brief research - some
| publishers will sell a non-perpetual license for about
| 3-4x what a physical book costs libraries, and that
| license dies after 2 years or 26 loans, whatever comes
| first:
|
| https://pressbooks.openeducationalberta.ca/ciicm/chapter/
| pub...
|
| The above source fits with what ChatGPT told me (the
| chatgpt info is otherwise unverified):
|
| https://chatgpt.com/share/682cffab-65b4-8002-8561-1b5842d
| c25...
| deceiving wrote:
| Ebooks are way more convenient than print books. Plus you
| dont have to go through Amazon's system if you dont want to
| there are serveral alternative ereaders (kobo, pocketbook,
| boox).
|
| Where are you getting inventing gripes from? Change font
| style and size is a major factor for many people along with
| weight. I started reading way more when I could use a
| ereader instead of print books.
| Jalad wrote:
| The only gripe I have nowadays with libraries is that they
| don't have a specific book I'm looking to read
|
| But I found that it's possible to request books like that
| through other libraries, since most libraries have
| agreements with other libraries to allow interlibrary loans
| Henchman21 wrote:
| I agree generally, but... It is within our power to shut all
| this stuff down. I'll walk past multiple EPO buttons as part of
| my normal work day.
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