Depending on which reports you read, Amazon handles a quarter to a half of all book sales in the US. It’s convenient and allows one-stop shopping. But when we become heavily dependent on one source, it’s bad for an open market. There’s less of a market share for independent dealers, which makes sellers more dependent on one business’s whims.

Amazon has exercised various whims over the years. In 2009, it removed a significant number of LGBT books from its sales ranking on the grounds that they were “adult” books. (Strange terminology; I didn’t think of Amazon as primarily a kids’ book dealer.) It blamed The Algorithm and reversed its decision under public pressure.

The same year, Amazon pulled its most ham-handed book removal, deleting 1984 from customers’ devices after they had bought it and refunding their money. It served as a reminder that what you “buy” on the Kindle remains under Big Brother’s, I mean Amazon’s, control.
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