[pflats]

Suppose an author uploads their book to ExamplePrint Inc, a one stop shop that prints made-to-order books for customers.

The reader goes to ExamplePrint and buys the book.

ExamplePrint prints a softcover copy of the book on the spot and ships it out to the reader.

The user pays ExamplePrint, who pays the author some fraction of the user's money.

The reader is a customer of ExamplePrint and reading the author's book.

This is the analogy Apple would like to use for their app store. Apple's print time is almost instantaneous and the marginal costs are closer to zero.

[MilaM]

Nice analogy. The problem is, that ExamplePrint is the only shop the author can use to reach his customers. There is also PrintExample (Android), but it's customer base has zero overlap with ExamplePrint. Therefore the author has no choice but to use ExamplePrint's service.

[gls2ro]

Your example is actually showing why it is the customer of ExamplePrint that choose to read that book and not the customer of that book that choose to print it at ExamplePrint.

Because if it is the customer of the book that wants to print it they are always welcome to go to PrintExample. But the situation is actually reverse: the customer entered ExamplePrint because they choose ExamplePrint first and then saw the book there. They might not read that book if they would not have been a customer of ExamplePrint => do they are in fact a customer of ExamplePrint that choose to read something they found there.

[MilaM]

I don't agree. Without the authors, the printer has no business. No one is going to want to be customer of ExamplePrint to buy books with empty pages. The problem is, that because of size and technological obstacles, ExamplePrint can dictate the conditions for the authors. The relationship is very asymetrical. The only way out is to have laws that make this limited marketplace fair for all three sides. Hence the EUs attempt at regulating the so called getekeepers.