Last month, in his post “The End of Indie,” Richard Nash proclaimed: “Indie doesn’t mean anything anymore. It’s dead. Which is OK, because it won…So now the phase of indie is over, now that the monopoly on the production and distribution of knowledge, culture and opinion has been broken, what next, a new phase…”
A week later Amazon released their updated terms of service which essentially, forces the hand of the many websites and companies that use their API to provide data to their users. The gist of the new terms is that if you use Amazon’s data, then you must first and foremost, link to and sell Amazon’s products.
Otis Chandler, CEO of goodreads, chimed in on the new policy in a blog post, New “find at” links on book pages, back in early August. goodreads was forced to refine the way they link to e-commerce enabled sites that offered for sale the books discussed on goodreads. Now, instead of giving each bookstore or website equal exposure the goodreads user is provided this choice- Amazon or “More Options.” On the changes Chandler says, “Amazon has done a great job sparking innovation with it’s Product API and Affiliate Program. It’s sad to see that trend starting to be reversed.”
In his post, The Amazon policy change, and how we’re responding, Tim Spalding, founder and CEO of Library Thing, also expresses his concern over Amazon’s about face. “Amazon is retreating from its historic commitment to simplicity, flexibility and openness. They won through openness. Their data is all over the web, and with it millions of links to Amazon. They won’t benefit from a retreat here.” Spalding also notes that Library Thing will be rolling out a new “Get it Now” page “with links to other booksellers, especially local bookstores and libraries, and a host of new features.”
Shelfari, the other major player in the book social network world, is an Amazon-owned company so don’t expect to hear anything from them on this issue.
So here we are, embarking on a new journey where the “monopoly on the production and distribution of knowledge, culture and opinion has been broken” yet companies like Amazon are tightening their hold on the distribution of information and the choices available to the consumer.
Do we really want to live in a world that has been reduced to ‘Amazon or More Options’?