Quote:
Originally Posted by tompe
I do not see why people care so much about the price. I read 50-100 books per year. I can read books I already own which I now are from OK to good or buy new books. And paying $15 per book (which was what English paperbacks cost in Sweden...) is only $1500 per year if I read 100 new books which is not so expensive for my main hobby. And now books are cheaper especially buying them as ebooks.
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People care about price precisely because the cost adds up and buying a book means paying for it with after-tax dollars, that is, from the limited pool of money available after the government has taken its share.
For you and for me, the $1500 a year may not be a big dent in our budget, but to someone who earns $30,000 a year gross (and thus takes home about $23,000) and who has to pay for their own medical insurance (a low-priced family plan in my area of the country runs about $900 a month or $10,800 a year), has to feed a family of 4 (which seems to run about $150 a week or $7,800 a year), has to pay rent, which in my area would run about $1,000 a month (or $12,000 a year), and let's not forget the cost of an automobile to get to and from work -- well, you are already running in the negative.
The point is that price is very important to most people, particularly when one income is not enough.
I am sure that Bill Gates and Donald Trump could care less whether they spend $2.99 or $22.99 on a book they want to read, but for many Americans, that luxury is not real.