For Amazon, Lashes and Backlashes

If Amazon had a secret agenda in 2011 to fuel a backlash against itself, the retailer has scored another triumph.

Its refusal to collect sales tax in California despite a new law compelling it to do so prompted some well-publicized criticism not only from politicians but the tech community. Its hiring of ambulances at its Pennsylvania warehouse to wait for workers to keel over in the summer heat conjured up a Dickensian sweatshop. The retailer apparently brought its Kindle Fire tablet to market before it had all the kinks out, disappointing some of its biggest fans. Now there is the Price Check flap, where Amazon asked customers to go into physical stores, scan the prices with a special app on their smartphone and then buy from Amazon.

Although the campaign was geared more against Wal-Mart and Best Buy than independent bookstores — anyone who does not know that the price of any book in a bookstore is significantly more than the Amazon price has been napping for 10 years — it was the bookstores that voiced their outrage. Americans love efficiency. Anyone who has spent 45 minutes waiting in line at a post office this holiday season could only hope that Amazon would take over that moribund institution and knock some reforms into it. But all of Amazon’s efficiency, all of its selection and low prices, comes at a cost. The retailer’s continued success will be determined by whether people are willing to pay it.