Here’s what monopoly power means: If you’re Amazon, you can ignore the public relations hits that come with blistering front-page stories in the New York Times and stinging opinion pieces,and continue blithely about your business.

So what if the heavy-handed tactics Amazon has deployed in its dispute with the publishing conglomerate Hachette — delaying delivery of Hachette titles, including offerings by Stephen Colbert and Malcolm Gladwell; eliminating pre-order buy buttons, hiking the prices of Hachette e-books, etc. — has incited a storm of outrage? Amazon doesn’t care.

On May 10, the New York Times reported that, as part of an effort to negotiate better contractual terms from Hachette, Amazon had been for months making it difficult for Amazon users to purchase books by Hachette writers. Books that normally would be delivered in two or three days now required two or three weeks. Banner advertisements on author pages added insult to injury by promoting “similar books for lower prices.” Hachette authors exploded in criticism, and even some longtime defenders of the company, like the New York Times technology columnist Farhad Manjoo, called the behavior an “ugly spectacle to behold.”

But so far, Amazon hasn’t backed down, and that’s nothing short of amazing — not to mention troubling.

Amazon has historically been extraordinarily sensitive to bad press, lest it run the risk of encouraging consumers of its services to think twice about the online giant. Everything Jeff Bezos does, so the story goes, puts the consumer front and center. So when Amazon says – as it did in a press release this week detailing its side of the business dispute with Hachette — that “we regret the inconvenience,” we’re suddenly in new, uncharted, alien territory.

Amazon even advised prospective book buyers to seek better service from its competitors!