Go read the article. I'll wait . . .
As a consumer, I like getting as much for my money as I can. But when I go shopping for a birthday present for DH and I'm paying less for a hardcover from his favorite author than I would for an e-book, something's definitely wrong with the system and I'm pissed..
As an indie publisher, I LOVE the agency model for two reasons:
1) I can undercut the big publishers because I have much lower overhead.
2) I want to be able to set my own prices.
The problem here is that Apple and the five accused publishers pretty much admitted in the Wall Street Journal prior to Steve Jobs's death that they agreed to their agency model arrangement to stop the Godzilla known as Amazon. (Please note: The article I originally linked to last March has been removed. This link is to a cached page of the article, and I cannot guarantee this link will be active after today.)
Right now, everyone's bemoaning Bob Mayer's prediction that e-book royalty/splits will go up. This isn't my biggest worry.
My biggest worry is that this lawsuit (or settlement if the execs at the accused companies have a clue) will eliminate agency pricing, and all of the e-book retailers will start a price war that puts us indies out of business.
