[stonetools]

Collusion aside, there is really no logical reason why the wholesale pricing model should be applicable to digital media. Eventually, I think the logic of the agency price model will become the standard with regard to digital media.
A related question: is a book more like a commodity (potato chips,industrial widgets) or more like a work of art?

If a book is more like a commodity, then the wholsale model makes more sense, and allowing unrestricted price competition would be preferred.
If a book is more like art, then the agency model is better.
The truth is that some books are commodities ( your typical paranormal romance, for example) and others (like Robert Caro's multivolume biography of LBJ )are more like works of art.
From a societal point of view, there is a case for preserving the sort of structures that make the publicatiion of a Robert Caro opus more likely, or even possible.