It's not really comparable because Amazon never did anything to try to stop anyone from buying books through any other channel. The platform they do own, AWS, unlike the iphone, is perfectly open to competitors to Amazon's retail business.
It's a less direct form of market manipulation and one that doesn't usually meet the US's legal standards for antitrust, but it's a strategy Amazon loves to use.
That small margin above wholesale in the article's example is probably still effectively selling at a loss when you account for overhead of running the store, shipping, etc. It certainly would be for a smaller competitor.
Either of those represents a price that a competitor whose only business is selling books cannot compete with. Amazon can offer these prices as a loss leader because of their position in other markets, not because it has found a more optimal way to run the business of selling books.
Amazon was selling eBooks at $9.99, for Apple it was an issue because they couldn't ask a 30% share from publishers AND compete at $9.99 because Amazon achieved that price due to wholesale volume-deals, and likely not with a 30%+ margin.
Publishers wanted Amazon to increase sales-prices from $9.99, but due to their wholesale model they couldn't dictate that. Even when they increased wholesale prices, Amazon kept their sales-price of many NYT bestsellers at $9.99 making a loss (probably to drive eReader growth).
Quote: "Amazon continued to sell books at $9.99, losing money, even when publishers increased the wholesale price of books they were giving the online giant."
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-steve-jobs-and-apple-fix...
Neither does Apple. Amazon prevents all of their sellers from selling their goods at any sort of discount anywhere else (including through direct-to-consumer channels).
>The platform they do own, AWS, unlike the iphone, is perfectly open to competitors to Amazon's retail business.
It's not apples-to-apples comparison. Here's a better one ... Amazon will gather competitive metrics from sellers on their marketplace (i.e. their 'partners' and 'costumers') and then launch a competing product, undercut them on price, rig their search (to prioritize their product) and ultimately drive them out of business.
Apple is bad, but their terribleness is limited to the Mac-iOS ecosystem ... Amazon is way worse.
Brick and mortar retailers do the exact same thing and make generics that are exactly the same as best selling brand names, put them in favorable shelf position, and even put "compare to <brand>!" on their labels. This practice has probably saved me multiple thousands of dollars over my lifetime, so it is definitely to the benefit of the consumer and I am 100% in favor of it continuing. If you, as a company, add nothing that can't be replicated to your product other than a brand label, then you deserve to be replicated and undercut. That is a perfect example of the market working towards the public good.