[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I keep reading posts that state that the price of HC is all about paying more to get the book NOW, and therefore ebooks should have the same price. And as the perceived value of the book is increased by this and the publisher requests a higher price compared to PB, you should understand that the inability to lend, resell or donate the ebook will decrease that value and the price should be lower.

It's a little more complicated than that. There are two reasons for purchasing hardcovers. One is a durable long term reading copy. The other is fast access.

The primary market for hardcovers is libraries and collectors. Some hardcovers sell well beyond that, and those are the ones where "read it NOW" comes into play.

And the things that do affect the publisher's bottom line are: no costs of paper, printing, binding, transport, warehouses, risk of returns. The things that affect the distributor's bottom line are: no cost of transport, storage, no risk of being out of stock, unlimited virtual shelf space.

Correct, though print/bind/warehouse/distribute amount to perhaps 20% of the cost of a title. Reserve against returns goes away, too, but that will vary by title: the more copies you produce, the more can be potentially returned, so reserves for a title you have high hopes for and order a large initial printing will be rather more than reserves for a title you expect average sales from.

The things that affect the buyer's bottom line are: the extra expense for an ereader,

Increasingly less of a factor as prices drop.

the inability to borrow books from friends(because they can't lend them),

Depending upon which reader you use, you can lend an ebook: the B&N nook has a lending feature where you may load an ebook on your device to a friend with another nook for a two week period. Like a physical book, if you loan it in this manner, you don't have it while it's on loan. The mechanism that supports the loan feature disables your access to the book while it's loaned out.

the inability to get some money back from reselling, the inability to get tax reductions by donating.

I question how large a percentage of the readership resells or takes deductions on lending. I don't, for the most part, see those factors as part of the decision to buy a particular title in the first place. We buy the books we want to read. Resale and/or tax deduction come later, if at all.

So you can either say that the price of books comes from the value or the costs, but the bottom line is that ebooks should have lower prices.

I don't think anyone here thinks they shouldn't. The questions are "How much lower?" and "When?"
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Dennis