MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Apple eBook price fixing case going to court

FizzyWater · 06-05-2013, 10:27 PM

Wow, I've pretty much only read about this whole thing here and on other sites that are reader-oriented. So reading some of those "pro-Apple" comments on the first link were an eye-opener!

Agency pricing has saved me thousands of dollars.

I used to spend approx. $2000 a year on ebooks, mostly at Fictionwise. Once Agency pricing went in and *MMPB* pricing went up-up-up, I started borrowing more from the library. The habit is pretty ingrained now.

(Stressing *MMPB* because I never bought hardback, so the arguments that overall Agency pricing on hardback books went down had no affect on my spending it all).

One of the things I kept seeing in the comments was basically "if Apple got to be the one to offer the lowest price, how did that hurt consumers?!" But those comments are based on a sound-bite in the article...they don't realize that for many books, those "lower prices" were actually at least 20-25% higher than they had been before.

My personal opinion about ebooks is that they should be priced at least 20-25% less than the paper versions, given the limitations (legalities around sharing, DRM, etc) of the ebook versions. Once retailers couldn't discount ebooks, I stopped buying them (for the most part).

06-05-2013, 10:27 PM	#48
FizzyWater You kids get off my lawn! Posts: 4,220 Karma: 73492664 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Columbus, Ohio Device: Oasis 2 and Libra H2O and half a dozen older models I can't let go of	Wow, I've pretty much only read about this whole thing here and on other sites that are reader-oriented. So reading some of those "pro-Apple" comments on the first link were an eye-opener! Agency pricing has saved me thousands of dollars. I used to spend approx. $2000 a year on ebooks, mostly at Fictionwise. Once Agency pricing went in and MMPB pricing went up-up-up, I started borrowing more from the library. The habit is pretty ingrained now. (Stressing MMPB because I never bought hardback, so the arguments that overall Agency pricing on hardback books went down had no affect on my spending it all). One of the things I kept seeing in the comments was basically "if Apple got to be the one to offer the lowest price, how did that hurt consumers?!" But those comments are based on a sound-bite in the article...they don't realize that for many books, those "lower prices" were actually at least 20-25% higher than they had been before. My personal opinion about ebooks is that they should be priced at least 20-25% less than the paper versions, given the limitations (legalities around sharing, DRM, etc) of the ebook versions. Once retailers couldn't discount ebooks, I stopped buying them (for the most part). Last edited by FizzyWater; 06-06-2013 at 01:14 AM. Reason: fumble finger correction