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.

More recently, Amazon removed a book from its catalogue because it disagrees with the theory it presents. Amazon, by its own statement, has “chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness.” The book is called When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. It’s likely from Amazon’s wording that it has dropped other books, though I can’t find specific evidence of this. If you want to research a theory, whether it’s to support it, rebut it, or just educate yourself, you need to examine the strongest arguments promoting and opposing it. If you want to study the question of whether gender dysphoria is a mental illness, you need to go outside Amazon.

You can get Mein Kampf and (as part of an anthology) Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies on Amazon. The company’s standards are, to put it mildly, curious.

There are many specialty book dealers. Some sell only religious books, others only scientific texts, and others only publications that fit a certain political viewpoint. They help to promote niche publication. When a company as big as Amazon selects books for whether its management likes them, though, it’s worrisome.

Publishers based their decisions on expected sales. If they have to consider whether Amazon considers a book’s conclusions acceptable, that will affect which books they publish. One year it might be gay themes, the next year unacceptable theories about transsexuality, tomorrow something else.

It’s too much to expect Amazon to be neutral on every issue. People have biases and preferences. All I’m asking is that you consider alternatives to Amazon when buying, whether it’s eBay, Abe Books, Barnes and Noble, publishers’ direct-sale sites, or your local bookstore. The important thing is to keep the marketplace competitive.