To those interested in comics, you might be aware that until recently Diamond essentially the only distribution company for said comic books. Now there are a few, and my comics store guys are a bit miffed about it.
Monopolies are a scourge unto the country. Praise be to the FTC for condemning Google as a monopoly, so let's see how they handle that. But from talking to my comics guys it sounds like Diamond might be good as a monopoly.
Their reasoning is this: in the old days when something went wrong, they called Diamond up, spoke to their rep and got it resolved. Now, since they work with a few distributors, they've found resolving issues to be even worse. There's one company who never answers their phone and another who insists that stores do everything online. These guys are pretty old school, so they're not too knowledgeable about the internet. They don't even take credit cards there. Cash only. So I can see their frustration.
Does this mean that Diamond was great as a monopoly? Not necessarily. As a monopoly I'm sure they took advantage of their position a few times over the years. It's impossible for a corporation to *not* be tempted to take advantage. But it does seem that the retailers were happier when Diamond was the only game in town.
So I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I've never bought directly from a distributor before, so I don't have any experience in that regard. But I know a lot of comics professionals, and I'm kind of curious to see what they think. Do I know anyone who owns a comics store?
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