Quote:
Originally Posted by conan50
The bigger point I would make is that books have serious competition as entertainment compared to decades ago. They cannot expect to cost as much as they once did. They also have more competition within the book world, now anyone can publish a book, sell it for .99, so that even at $9.99 price point the traditionally published book ought to be ten times better than the indie selling for a buck. And usually they are not much better if at all. Yet traditional publishers want to raise their ebook prices higher. It is suicide. It is the 'buggy whip' problem if they are doing this to prop up hardcover sales.
I will give you a concrete example to the problem: Netflix. $10 a month gets you tons of shows to watch, almost exactly the cost of buying 1 best selling ebook at Amazon.
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Serious competition, huh? I am sure there is many readers that also enjoy other forms of entertainment. And then again, there is those that never read, at least not books. Maybe a gossip magazine or the occasional newspaper. Those people will not read a book no matter how cheap including free. Shocking, but don't be surprised. I am not only talking about kids that barely read the mandatory books in school, but also adults.
You say Netflix, I say Oyster, ScribD, and Kindle Unlimited. Not exactly sure if Oyster and ScribD are sustainable in the long run though. I am thinking that KU may outlive them both. Books are no longer without subscription services. There is always the library as well that offers pbooks, dvds, ebooks, streaming movies, and audio books. So even if you are poor, you can read if you decide that you want to read.