The news just recently broke that Simon & Schuster will be buying Penguin Random House. The big 5 publishers will become the big 4. Worse yet is the alternative was Murdoch buying it and adding to he media empire. Industry consolidation is bad for all of us. It doesn't matter if it is horizontal or vertical. This means bad things for the employees, authors, and readers. Employees will be fired in the consolidation. Authors will have fewer publishers to pitch their books. There will be fewer people deciding what readers get to read. We need much stronger anti-trust actions in the United States. We need more and smaller businesses not fewer large ones. We need employee owned businesses not corporate empires. In society, nature, and economics diversity is our salvation.
