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I think that according to their perverse logic, when you pay $25.95 for the ebook you actually pay for at least five other people who they are sure will pirate the ebook off the darknet.
I don't agree with them at all, but I'd imagine their reasoning as follow:
1. Piracy is here to stay (ebook stealing, ebook copying.... call it what you will)
2. It is cheaper to produce ebooks. But, the market for them is smaller and for each copy sold a few will be pirated.
3. Lets price the ones we sell high enough to cover the pirated copies as well.
It's really a vicious cycle because the high price will lead to more copies pirated... and so forth.
I think the publishers are secretly wishing for Amazon to fail. Amazon is currently the one who is leading the advance of ebooks reading, at least in the eyes of the uninformed public. If they will fail, eInk demand will drop. More important, there will be less incentive for the hardware companies to improve on eInk. Ebooks will then be deemed as a failed market. And that's what the publishers hope to achieve. Because, let face it, if there will be a good enough device, an Infopad, so to speak - printed books will go the way of the dodo. And the publishing business, the way it's done today, will follow.
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