What the Heck is Amazon up to Now? | The Scholarly Kitchen

The fact is, we don't know what the heck Amazon is now, even assuming we ever did. When it first appeared on the scene, it seemed clear that it was a new kind of bookstore. Think of Barnes & Noble, add the Internet, and you have Amazon, right? Well, not so fast. Even at the outset Amazon seemed to be playing a different game. I recall contemplating the Amazon affiliates program when the company first launched and not knowing just what to make of it. On one hand it seemed like the virtual equivalent of a chain bookstore, with many outlets being serviced by a small number of distribution centers; on the other hand, it seemed to be playing the game on a scale never before contemplated. The affiliates program had the potential to convert every Web site into a storefront for Amazon (you could never do anything remotely like this in bricks and mortar), and it also carried the implication that there would be one and only one bookstore on the Internet, a situation that is close to being the case today. So was Amazon a bookstore . . . or something else?