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Originally Posted by Randeep
Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts.
I don't see that as being a great explanation at all. There are costs associated with physical media that do not exist with eBooks. Just to put it into perspective, you can get a 2nd or 3rd copy of an Ebook very easily. Or a 100,000th copy (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V. Repeat).
eBooks are a greater value because of their "lower production and distribution costs"? To a publisher, yes, but to the customer no. All it should mean to the buyer is that actual costs should be lower (we see in some cases, however, that this does not happen). In fact, their production costs approaches $0.00 the more a title is distributed. A few people have been making this point and while it's great that you like eBooks better than pbacks, it does change the fact that the economics on the supplier side are a lot cheaper when you go digital.
BTW: I should also state that I know costs for an eBook are not zero. I don't know too much about the ins and outs of how it works, but as a programmer I know a lot of the text is already coming from the author in digital form, but I understand that there is probably a technical department somewhere paying their IT staff a salary and charging X amount of dollars for the production of this book. I can't imagine it is that much though.
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There are costs associated with ebooks that paperbooks do not have. Paper doesn't have server fees, DRM licensing fees, bandwidth expense, etc. Explain how your argument makes sense. Also, while you claim that ebooks production cost approaches zero, it will never reach zero, even if you factor out the staffing and utility costs. There are still continual expenses with ebooks, that apply for each copy sold (such as the DRM licensing).
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Originally Posted by DiapDealer
Fountain soda is cheaper to produce than canned or bottled soda. I wonder why the customer always ends up paying more for it? Oh I remember now... it's because costs aren't always in a 1:1 ratio with value and price.
People can talk about what ebooks should cost until they're blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is... they will always cost exactly what the majority of people are willing to pay for them. They may get a little cheaper, but they're never going to get anywhere near their production costs.
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I dunno about where you are, but fountain soda is cheaper normally. I can goto a gas station, get a 32oz soda for 59 cents, but a 20oz bottle of soda costs $1.60 anymore. That's besides the point though. The idea that the cost to the customer for a product is what ever they can bear is true. If they price something too high, the customer won't buy it, and the price will be lowered to a point at which it will be sold.