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Originally Posted by anamardoll
I absolutely favor government intervention to keep prices set the same regardless of the customer.
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So all car dealers will have to post firm no-haggle prices? I love it. Too good to ever happen!
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Random House can't charge me 300% of what they charge everyone else
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They aren't organized in a way to do so. But so long as they don't discriminate by race or gender, they can do so legally. I can't think of any reason a bookseller isn't allowed to check out who posts against their industry on the internet, and try to charge them more. Even if they engaged in blatant sex discrimination (2/3 off when a guy buys romance books this weekend), they might get away with it.
In some parts of the world, you surely can haggle with retailers over the price of a book. I'd be surprised if lots of people (say, tourists) weren't charged 300 percent more than others for a Random House title.
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why should libraries be any different?
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When one of our sons receives his student-rate
Journal of Herpetology, he's the only one who will read it. When a library receives its institutional rate copy, at least a few people will hopefully read it. However, that's not the real reason the libraries pay way more than individuals. The real reason is that libraries comprehensive enough to even consider an obscure title like that tend to have a lot of money.
Publishers tend to be joint stock companies that would face hostile takeovers if they charged much less than the revenue-maximizing price.