There is one big cost that isn't being mentioned here. The initial and ongoing costs of the infrastructure required to support iTunes, Kindle, Nook, etc. They pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the hardware and software that is required to run one of these sites.The Annoyed Man wrote:What's funny about that is that I haven't bought a CD in ages. I pretty much buy from iTunes only. Where the analogy breaks down is the ability to buy single songs. I might not like all the songs on a CD. With iTunes, I don't have to buy all of them. But for me, that is neither here nor there, because the price of a CD is pretty small potatoes, so any potential cost differential between the CD format and the digital format isn't going to break the bank—whereas the cost differential between an electronic book file and the printed version is much harder to defend.tbrown wrote:Why? They're following a model very similar to iTunes. Buying a whole album from iTunes costs about the same as buying the physical CD. They cut down production and distribution costs, but the consumer doesn't share the savings.The Annoyed Man wrote:Well that's just pure corruption. It literally costs pennies to reproduce an electronic file. I'm amazed.
Anyway, I don't really have a dog in the hunt.....at least not at this time. As I posted previously, I can understand that textbooks would probably cost more than books of popular literature due to the difference in the unit cost of production (I have a background in the printing industry). With smaller press runs, there are fewer copies over which to amortize the fixed costs of running a press. But some of the practices described in this thread seem to be overtly usurious.....and this from institutions which are allegedly promoting education.
I am not defending their prices and I don't work for any of them, but I do work for HP so I do generally want them to continue doing what they are doing. :)