Quote:
Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
And that was what, 30-40 years ago? Has it occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, the cost structures have changed since then? 
Digital typesetting, huge leaps in productivity, printing in China, changes in raw material costs, economies of scale, POD for smaller print runs, better data analysis and dramatically increased efficiencies on the back end all drive down the costs of the paper part of the book biz. This results in paper costs occupying an increasingly smaller part of the total costs. |
Interesting, but we've never seen the price of books drop, or even a decrease in the rate at which the prices are increasing due to all of these "huge leaps in productivity".
There was another thread recently that had the data to show that the price of books has continued basically doubled or tripled the rate of inflation since the 70s. That would seem to counter any argument of, "but think of how fast the price of books would have risen without those leaps of productivity".