Amazon to Cut E-Book Prices, Shaking Rivals (making Amazon a Monopoly)

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118. Readers will be the ultimate victims if this suit succeeds

The federal suit, if successful, will allow Amazon to gain back that monopoly, and the biggest victim will be readers. Start off with e-book prices. Amazon can sell e-books at less than the price they pay publishers because they want to increase Kindle sales, and put competitors out of business. Once it's done that, though, it won't sell e-books at less than cost. It'll jack up prices, and given that it won't have any serious competitors, it'll raise them higher than if it had competition. So you may pay less for e-books today, but you'll pay more in the future.

An even bigger problem will be the choice of books you can buy, and where you can buy them. Retail book stores will be hurt badly, particularly independent ones that typically stock hard-to-find books. Lorraine Shanley, a publishing consultant, told this to the New York Times about the suit's effect, if successful:

"It will look like blue skies. But in the longer term, competition erodes as the spread between e-books and physical books grows greater. There will be fewer retail stores."

http://blogs.computerworld.com/20022/readers_are_the_ultimate_victims_in_the_federal_suit_against_apple_and_publishers