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The big houses don't want to lower prices for ebooks because they realize how much of a killing they can make, and they're bloody well going to try and squeeze every dime they can out of the customer while they have the chance. They know that prices will collapse in the next couple of years, so they're hoping to head that off with the higher priced books claiming that they offer a "higher value" to the end user. Yeah, right. That idea is really, really quickly losing ground in the digital age and being replaced by "fair" pricing.
It's the reason why you're seeing some books dropping as long as $4.99 on books that used to be 3-5 times that much in paperback. The only ebooks I expect to be above the $4.99 mark in 5 years will be text books and technical manuals, and only because of the huge amount of work that goes into making them. Yes, textbooks really do cost a lot of money to make. Probably nowhere near what they charge, but it does cost a lot. So they will probably be the only ones that will remain above the $5 mark.
And given the general cost of construction for an ebook only title (a few hundred bucks at most), $4.99 will rake in a LOT of money for the big houses. <sarcasm> Of course, once you subtract lawyer, marketing, screw the author till they bleed, fat guy in a suit, clueless execs, and other "in house" fees, the author will be lucky to see enough money from their book to buy a stale slice of bread.</sarcasm> Yes, I don't like the big houses. I think they're heartless, book making behemoths who don't give a lick about anybody but themselves (especially customers and authors). Of course, if one of them can show me differently, I'll change my mind.
But on a different note, the shakeup may be good in the fact that, given the increasing number of small house presses out there, the big houses might actually get smacked down to the point where there are no more "big houses" anymore, and all the publishing houses will be small press, with everyone fighting equally for their slice of the digital pie.
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