You do know there was an antitrust against the publishers and Apple where they did collude and force changes to the agreement onto Amazon, right? This isn't even hypothetical. Literally happened. Amazon absolutely cannot live without publishers right now.

But can publishers live without Amazon?

My point is that that question was never asked: practically all of the publishers that sell on Amazon's marketplace - including Amazon Publishing - agree that they want DRM incorporated into Amazon's digital marketplace platform.

Almost certainly they would be fine, given some time. Is why they were willing to strong arm Amazon into changing terms on how they sell ebooks.

And you seem to be dodging my point? My assertion/wager/whatever is that the publishers actively want it so that Amazon has to have DRM on their devices and sales. Just as they want it on libraries lending. Do I /know/ this? No. That is why I worded it as something that would shock me.

I agree that my willingness to wager on this would go down as I extend it to my larger guess, that they also have terms covering things that Amazon publishes. That said, it lowers my willingness, but it does not seem beyond the pale.