[DiapDealer]

I honestly never look at the list price anymore (never really did with pbooks in a B&M store in the pre-ebook era, either). It's been irrelevant to me for decades. I know what price I commonly pay for things, and use that to gauge any potential "deals" (though most of my decisions are predicated on "I want this, and it's a price I'm comfortable paying"-type of criteria).

Are typical readers really that easily manipulated by list-price inflation tricks? I think it's more a publisher/retailer/author game (like @ftorres mentioned) than a tactic to trick consumers. In the U.S., the price printed on the book has been drastically different than what a store has sold them for a long, long time. So who are the poor, huddled masses of buyers being fooled that we suddenly need to "protect" from this heinous manipulation?