I really don't trust Amazon having a monopoly on any market especially one I care about as much as books. While they still have competition, things seem to be going in their favor. Even more so after the justice department handed them control over the market again when they complained about Apple. Amazon is taking the Walmart strategy: push your competitors out with unsustainable pricing and then take over the market and charge whatever you want when they're all gone.
>and charge whatever you want when they're all gone.
Where does Walmart do this? I've never been to a Walmart where pricing was out of line. Moreover, predatory pricing is litigious at best and illegal at worst.
A good example of this behavior recently has been Walmarts big push on groceries. I saw it first hand when they did it in a small community I lived in. I also worked at Walmart as one of my first jobs so I had an inside look at things including their anti-union programs and pricing strategies.
Google "Walmart predatory pricing", it's a well-documented issue.
I suspect that it is "predatory" if it puts you out of business. It becomes illegal if you can convince a legislature to intervene (witness what happened in France, to Amazon[1]). Consumers don't tend to complain about lower prices.
