Quote:
Originally Posted by nabsltd
How many people who expressed a similar sentiment would feel differently if they could not remove the DRM from the e-book?
We have all heard horror stories about people losing entire collections when a e-book "seller" (i.e., one that used DRM that wasn't broken at the time) shut down. It's unlikely that it would happen to a company as big as Amazon or Adobe, but it's also possible that they phase out support for old devices with new DRM.
For me, if I couldn't remove the DRM, the e-book would be worth far less than even the cheapest used book, as I would never know when my ability to access the book might be removed.
Even with easy DRM removal, e-books should be priced far less than physical books, because only the first copy costs very much to produce. If publishers ever wake to to the fact that much lower prices on zero marginal cost items results in far, far greater total profits, maybe this will happen.
But, as long as publishers live in the past where they keep suckering authors into signing contracts favorable to publishers (even though much of the reason—risk—for those contracts goes away with e-books), we'll never see e-books priced liked games or music. Even digitally delivered movies are cheaper per unit than e-books (less than $20/month for all you can watch, in many cases). Any industry that charges more than the thieves that run movie studios is truly ripping off the consumer, and publishers are doing just that with e-books.
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As to your first question, yes I would have the same sentiment.
As to your last part, instead of saying publishers are living in the past, perhaps you should be telling the buyers to quit buying ebooks at those prices.
Here is the thing: if I am selling something at $20 and have people willing to pay it, I really don't care if the one that wants it for $2 doesn't buy it. No, I am not going to reduce my price because the one thinks a person's time is worth nothing.
Yes, I was actually told that by a couple of people. You aren't "working" so you can make me "8 hours time project" for your costs only. Cleaned up answer was No, you either pay me what I am asking or you don't get project."
Plain and simple: you think a price is too high, don't buy it. Vote with your wallet.
No one is making you buy a certain anything. There are other choices.
Note: I am probably the cheapest person on this forum. If I don't like a price, I don't buy it.