There's nothing bad about this at all for authors. Authors are in a better place right now than they've ever been. They have more choices than ever.
It's the same for readers. This means lower prices for books and more choice. More choice because Amazon and B&N and Kobo have made it possible for authors to go directly to the reader through ebooks at prices that are reasonable and fair.
The middleman is the publisher. And the publisher is who suffers because of the outrageous overhead that forces them to charge outrageous prices for books.
And THAT's who this is about. Not Amazon with a monopoly—because that's false. Amazon is NOT a monopoly. Publishers are free to sell their books on their own or take them elsewhere. Don't punish Amazon because they have the better business model and have become wildly popular. It isn't as if they're hiring third world children to distribute those ebooks.
What this is REALLY about is a group of publishers COLLUDING to fix prices. Which, the last time I looked, was against the law and frowned upon. Hence the lawsuit and the settlement. The publishers colluded to fix prices in order to save their bottom line in a time of turmoil in the publishing industry. Their business model is failing and they are scrambling to do anything they can except fix the real problem: them.
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