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that is simply not true.
Even if you accept the fact that the only or primary goal of a Publisher is to maximize profits - a completely free market economy will still always have a level of inefficiency. Publishers might think their prices are maximized at the $14.99 price point, but they might be wrong. Data modeling over time will give them a better idea, but even still they might be wrong. Products get priced at the wrong levels all the time.
Then feed in all the other variables that will tell you the goal isn't always to maximize profits for that one product at that one point in time. Large successful corporations (like the Evil Amazon) often operate for YEARS at inefficient prices in order to maximize their profits years from now.
In the case of Publishers, it could very well be the optimal price of novels #1 thru #3 is quite a bit lower even though it doesn't maximize their profit - in order to build the customer base required to make novels #4 thru #10 blockbusters.
Besides which, if customers don't communicate to Publishers why they aren't buying the eBook ... price, lousy cover art, not interested in the topic, bad formatting ... then how will the Publishers know why a book isn't successful? There might be better ways to communicate that information, but if one star reviews is what customers choose then maybe the Publisher/Author need to work on developing better and more efficient ways for their customers to make themselves heard.
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