Amazon found a way to compete before anyone else did, so that makes it excusable for illegally orchestrated price fixing to attack their legal approach?
Sorry, but this isn't the "Think Different" approach the customers deserve.
Interestingly, the decision PDF says that originally Amazon's $9.99 was not below wholesale cost. The publishers raised the wholesale cost above $9.99 thinking it would force Amazon to raise their prices, but Amazon decided they would rather take a loss:
"With a digital book discount, Amazon’s $9.99 price point roughly matched the wholesale price of many of its e-books. " ... "One of the strategies that they [publishers] employed was the elimination of the existing discount on wholesale prices of e-books. This meant that the wholesale price for e-books would equal the wholesale price for physical books, and as a result, the wholesale price that Amazon paid for an e-book would be set at several dollars above Amazon’s $9.99 price point. This tactic, however, failed to convince Amazon to change its pricing policies and it continued to sell many NYT Bestsellers as loss leaders at $9.99.9"
Lose money on one book, earn it on three others because you have customers that are bought into your ecosystem. Also, prices subsidized by Kindle sales.
The point is that Publishers weren't losing.
But, Amazon is not notorious for making profits, and I can understand how them dominating a market may be a bad thing. Doesn't justify Apple's tactic though.
Sorry, but this isn't the "Think Different" approach the customers deserve.