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Haven't read all the posts, but I do think the original poster missed one little point. It isn't always that a given person doesn't want to buy a copy of a given book, but sometimes that they can't afford to. I mean say a new Stephen King book (for an example) in hard cover costs $25.00 plus tax. So altogether maybe it costs $30.00 for the book. Doesn't sound like much does it, but say a person is on a limited income or having trouble making ends meet as far as keeping the important bills like Rent, Electric, Natural Gas and of course the Grocery bill paid. Things add up after all. So if they are struggling to keep the important bills paid are they really likely to spend $30.00 on a book? Not likely I'd say. Of course they want to read a good story just like the rich or at least well to do person does. So they go to the library or used book stores etc. hoping to find what they want at an affordable price. And there are a lot more average to poor income people in this country than rich ones. We hear on the news about tax breaks for the top 1% for example, which means there is around 99% of the population who aren't among that group. Also you can sell more copies of a product (book or otherwise) if you keep your price down. I mean what's better, selling 50 copies of a book or selling 5000? Oh sure you might make more $ in the short term with the high price product, but the more people can purchase it the more advertising you can get out there (i.e. have you read the newest Stephen King book, or listened to the newest CD by band X?). Publishers may do some promotion of a given book, but what really gets the word out about a given author is the people who read his/her works, and the more people read a given book the more such advertising there is out there.
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