I don't read the gray lady on account of the paywall, but this is something I have noticed somewhat in recent days.
For the usual reasons of distrust of excessive economic power, I have not bought from Amazon for a few years. However, as part of that, I have bought from Abebooks until the last month, when I learned that it was owned by Amazon. I had previously run some quick searches trying to learn who owned Abebooks, and did not find anything. It is also not evident on the Abebooks website. Looking for another source for books, I found an on-line vendor that looks similar to Abebooks, listing used and new books for sale from various booksellers in diverse places. I checked it out and could not link it to any overly large enterprises. That was good, and the other site prices are not obviously higher than Abebooks, but the new site adds $4 shipping on each book, so my cost for used books is now up about 25%. Not good, but I'll pay it to not feed the monster.
So, as both Abebooks and the new site list used books for sale by various bookstores, many of the same books are listed on both sites, and my new vendor might even present a better selection of what I look for. That's good. But some of the vendors that offer the lowest prices deal only through abebooks.com, ie Amazon/Bezos, and they list very many books on the Amazon/Bezos site. Coincidentally, one of them, the Book Depository, shown as being located in England, is owned by Amazon, ships free to the US, but when the packages arrive, they appear to have been shipped from the US.
All of that is business as usual for a megacorp, but another bookshop that sells beaucoups of books through Amazon's abebooks is Seattle Goodwill, a non-profit. This raises my eyebrows because I live in a state near Seattle in which Goodwill's non-profit status has been in question because of high compensation given to its executives. I suspect that the relationship between Amazon and Goodwill may be somewhat complex. Amazon gives its customers free shipping to donate items to tax-exempt Goodwill, Goodwill then sells the items through an Amazon subsidiary, Amazon gets a commission on the sale, what's going on? Goodwill is a non-profit that does 'job-training'. Are 'trainees' not earning Seattle's high minimum wage part of this business? What does this operation look like? Anyone know?
So, as both Abebooks and the new site list used books for sale by various bookstores, many of the same books are listed on both sites, and my new vendor might even present a better selection of what I look for. That's good. But some of the vendors that offer the lowest prices deal only through abebooks.com, ie Amazon/Bezos, and they list very many books on the Amazon/Bezos site. Coincidentally, one of them, the Book Depository, shown as being located in England, is owned by Amazon, ships free to the US, but when the packages arrive, they appear to have been shipped from the US.
All of that is business as usual for a megacorp, but another bookshop that sells beaucoups of books through Amazon's abebooks is Seattle Goodwill, a non-profit. This raises my eyebrows because I live in a state near Seattle in which Goodwill's non-profit status has been in question because of high compensation given to its executives. I suspect that the relationship between Amazon and Goodwill may be somewhat complex. Amazon gives its customers free shipping to donate items to tax-exempt Goodwill, Goodwill then sells the items through an Amazon subsidiary, Amazon gets a commission on the sale, what's going on? Goodwill is a non-profit that does 'job-training'. Are 'trainees' not earning Seattle's high minimum wage part of this business? What does this operation look like? Anyone know?