Wednesday, April 20, 2011

My World - Conflicts of Interest

The deeper you dig, the more dirt you find - and it can be a dirty business.


Conflicts of interest are everywhere in the Anime industry. Publishers who want you to sell their product also have their own stores and sell them directly, often below your cost. Marketers put advertisements right in the products they give you to sell gathering data on your customers. Content sites that want you to pay them to advertise your product also give those products away for free to generate extra traffic so they can charge you more for advertising. Studios let your direct competitors handle the wholesale distribution of their product, allowing them access to all your buying and sales data. Marketplace sites that you pay to sell on will use your sales data to decide of they should carry an obscure product directly and undercut you. Loyalty between business partners doesn't exist except to sales numbers.

This is the environment we do business in.

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