Quote:
Originally Posted by HamsterRage
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".
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Right -- BECAUSE -- the cost of making a book IS NOT, nor HAS IT EVER BEEN, all that relevant to the price of a book.
The '70's was full of "we have to increase prices because...". There was gas, and sugar, and all manner of other "we have to increase prices because..." shennigans going on. Books were no different.
Why is this such a hard concept to grasp? The hard back is simply the "in demand" format for maximum profits for books. Take a look at movies. The just released, new in the theater movie commands the highest ticket prices.
Then the movie moves on to the cheaper theaters. You think there's any reason for the movie to be cheaper OTHER than demand? THEN the movies are seen in exclusive Pay per view, hotels and the like. THEN it appears as a DVD release -- then Red Box, then the premium cable channels like HBO, then for free exlusively on a network channel yadda yadda.
At what point has the cost of that movie change? It hasn't. It's the SAME movie product. The only change is in the demand, and thus the prices that can be commanded for it.
Lee