I've been trying to keep up with the fracas going on between Macmillan and Amazon. I mean, mostly it's just a couple of big business fighting it out which, right, why should I care. Here's a good overview from Charlie Stross. Also the expected witty and insightful ranting from John Scalzi. I've been thinking about why my sympathies pretty much immediately went to the Macmillan side. I mean, I use Amazon all the time and am generally pretty pleased with the overall experience of shopping there. It wasn't until I read John August's take that things snapped into focus. Amazon's strategy of de-listing all books published by Macmillan in both electronic and print forms is, in fact, a dick move. It's such a dick move, in fact, that it almost renders the merits of their stance moot. I kinda don't care whether the Amazon case has merits because they way they handled it was so classless and petty and just, well, dickish. It's not like I'm gonna start boycotting Amazon but I am planning to spend more time researching my buying options in the future and not just use them as a 1-stop all purpose shopping location.