Because to the liberals at Apple reality is what they claim it is. To liberals, words are actions.
Not being an economists, neither of you would understand that consumer advantages are NOT necessarily measure solely by low prices. There are other such consumer advantages such as multiple points of market access, access to multiple authors, quality editing, book selection, all of which were waning under the model that Amazon was pushing because the loss of hardcover sales was making it difficult to pay the authors, impacting the editing process, and even to find and select quality books.
The US Supreme Court's own guidelines on vertical cooperation v. horizontal cooperation and the differences recognized those differences and stated that a mere increase in pricing is NOT and should never be used as evidence of price fixing because of those consumer benefits. They stated if those benefits resulted, then it cannot be considered per se price fixing! Only horizontal cooperation is per se price fixing and therefor illegal. They also instructed that if there was a legitimate BUSINESS reason for the behavior of the VERTICAL participant, it was not illegal! The The Supreme Court instructed all lower courts to use these guidelines in ALL such cases. . . and Judge Côte did not, nor did the two concurring Justices of the appellate court! Every single one of those things was present in the Apple case. That is why it was so generally though the SC would reverse, because that was the STATE OF THE LAW AS ESTABLISHED BY THE VERY COURT APPLE HAD APPEALED TO! Judge Côte, in her decision, created out of whole cloth a joint meeting on December 15, 2009, between Apple and all six major publishers for which there was zero testimony, zero evidence, and was not even in the case as presented by the government, which according to the testimony of ALL the witnesses NEVER HAPPENED! From the last page of the link to Judge Denise Côte's decision provided by TexasGator:
It is THIS fictitious meeting which Judge Côte constructs her case against Apple as the ringleader of the "conspiracy," and on which the 33 state Attorneys General based THEIR cases.
Are you aware that Judge Côte actually announced she had WRITTEN her decision before the case even STARTED? Before she heard even a shred of testimony? That's what she said. She has a reputation for doing that in every single case she hears. She has NOT ONCE found for a defendant, ever. She assumes that they must proves they're innocent; if the government brings a case against them, they must be guilty. QED. For these reasons, she has the worst rating of any Judge in the New York district, with only a three star rating for legal knowledge, and an overall ONE STAR rating, a rating of "Very Bad".
And, yes TexasGator, I've read every word of Judge Côte's decision long before you did. I've also read every word of both Concurring Justices decisions and the Justice who wrote a scathing rebuttal to their poor decision actually based on the LAW as it stood, rather than going back to laws that had been invalidated by later decisions. He was appalled at Judge Cote's behavior and decision, and his colleagues lack of legal rigor in their decision.