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The publishing industry is fighting for survival and has been for a couple decades. Demand is dropping; people are reading less and less. This is a 200 year-old industry facing hard times as it is, and they're scared as hell of turning their product into a digital file that can be copied and pirated. I think they would do well to embrace it, but they're heading into new water very, very carefully.
I don't think either Amazon/e-book retailers or the publishing industry is the bad guy. On one side you have companies like Amazon -who barely made profit for years due to slim margins- taking a loss on e-book sales in order to sell Kindles, and on the other you have a struggling publishing industry trying to stay alive. It's like two starving monkeys fighting over a peanut.
Yeah I would love to get an ebook copy along with a hard copy, but I don't feel put out by the current situation. If I really want a hard copy for whatever reason, I just buy that. If I don't feel the need to have it on my bookshelf, I buy the digital version, saving space and often saving money. As consumers we have more book buying options than ever. If I gotta have both, I can easily find a cheap used copy of nearly any book online, and then the industry makes nothing.
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