Direct result of the weakening of antitrust from a 2007 case legalizing vertical price-fixing, justified by the dumb fake rationale that Wikipedia paraphrases as:

> manufacturer-imposed minimum resale prices can lead retailers to compete efficiently for customer sales in ways other than cutting the retail price.

It has nothing to do with technology, just oligarchy and corruption. Nothing "capitalists" hate more than competition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leegin_Creative_Leather_Produc....

edit: as an aside, why are almost none of the top level comments, and absolutely none of the 5 most upvoted comments, about Amazon pricing policies? They're all about how people like to (or don't like to) shop at Amazon. Who cares?