However, experience has shown that the ability to succeed in selling books on the Internet is directly related to how much money a seller is prepared to lose and how much funding, in the billions of dollars, is available to that seller from the investment community. And so Internet bookselling in the U.S. has become even more concentrated than community-based bookselling. Both these companies are heavily supported by Wall Street, and both are willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars per year on the gamble that they will eliminate serious competition. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Internet in America is more than a tool. It is increasingly becoming a state religion.
Politicians genuflect to the god of technology.
The sanctification of all things Internet is being driven by the twin engines of Wall Street and the media. The most recent manifestations of this frenzied excess are the proposed merger of AOL and Time Warner and the anointing of Jeff Bezos as Time magazine's Man of the Year. Thus it is no surprise that the Internet reflects the values of the society which it serves. In America, those values increasingly foster monopoly power and acquisitiveness. Profile Andy Ross has owned Cody's Books in Berkeley, California, U.S.A., since 1977.