MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Why is the price of eBooks still so high ?

kacir · 02-01-2009, 02:28 PM

If you search those forums you will see that we have discussed this topic many, many times.

Many people have interesting theories regarding such high prices:
- because they *can* charge that much
- because they want to find out how much the market (read: us -- suckers buying despite ridiculously high prices) can bear
- because the publishers want to sabotage the entire e-book industry so they can continue with their old and well established business. Preferably using quills, ink, handmade paper and that newfangled thing "movable type"
- because they fear piracy and want paying users to compensate for "loses" caused by "pirates" (the interesting thing is, the pirates do not need e-books, they most often simply scan paper books (in my humble and not well informed opinion))
- because they have no clue about e-books
- because most of the senior management (in publishing industry) are technophobes
- because the licences for DRM technology used are expensive
- because they fail to see parallels with the music industry

02-01-2009, 02:28 PM	#4
kacir Wizard Posts: 3,463 Karma: 10684861 Join Date: May 2006 Device: PocketBook 360, before it was Sony Reader, cassiopeia A-20	If you search those forums you will see that we have discussed this topic many, many times. Many people have interesting theories regarding such high prices: - because they can charge that much - because they want to find out how much the market (read: us -- suckers buying despite ridiculously high prices) can bear - because the publishers want to sabotage the entire e-book industry so they can continue with their old and well established business. Preferably using quills, ink, handmade paper and that newfangled thing "movable type" - because they fear piracy and want paying users to compensate for "loses" caused by "pirates" (the interesting thing is, the pirates do not need e-books, they most often simply scan paper books (in my humble and not well informed opinion)) - because they have no clue about e-books - because most of the senior management (in publishing industry) are technophobes - because the licences for DRM technology used are expensive - because they fail to see parallels with the music industry Last edited by kacir; 02-01-2009 at 02:32 PM.