Actually, I think Amazon (Canada) illustrates the problem nicely with the Clive book cited earlier:
Code:
Formats Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle Edition -- $18.04 --
Hardcover $17.78 $11.88 $9.47
The ebook is more expensive than everything, followed by Amazon's hard cover, followed by it's competitors (who are, presumably, paying a cut to Amazon), followed by used (who are also, presumably, paying a cut to Amazon). I'm not going to claim that that this is the typical breakdown, but it seems to be pretty darned close.
Not only does the ebook version suffer from little competition in the market place which (in this case) is inflating it's value but there is no option to buy lower priced used copies. To add insult to injury, you can't resell your ebook either. That means the total cost of ownership is effectively higher.
For someone who buys the latest titles with zero discount, that may be acceptable. For someone who waits for the price to drop, that is not acceptable.
For what it's worth, virtually everything that I read on my ereaders is in the public domain/creative commons or from the library because of that.