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Originally Posted by pwalker8
Simply repeating the talking point and calling a price point a collusion price doesn't change the facts. It's been over 8 years now since the alleged collusion occurred.
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And the Agency pricing scheme, that was put into effect at the time of the Apple/Big Six collusion, is now the industry standard.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Most of the publishers including the non big 5 publishers use the same pricing strategy, i.e. ebooks slightly under the normal discounted price of the current paper price (either hardback or paper depending on if the book has been released in paper). It's been that way for a number of years now. 8 years is plenty of time for the market to agree on a price point. That's what has happened with ebooks. If ebooks were too expensive for most consumers then the price point would have dropped by now.
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The Big Five publishers are not basing their prices on the "market" – they're basing them on what they want to charge. In their minds, keeping the prices up for eBooks helps the sales of paper books. So it's still collusion. It's pretty obvious when Amazon sells independent books for much, much cheaper than those that are priced by the Big Five.
Example ... I've just finished reading
The Silmarillion (after years of not reading it while being a big fan of Tolkien's books). I thought I might want to add it to my book collection (the copy I read was borrowed from the library via Overdrive). Here are the prices in the "competitive" eBook market.
Amazon – $9.99
Barnes & Noble – $9.99
Google Play Store – $9.99
Kobo – $9.99
Apple iTunes – $9.99
Not that I think this is an unreasonable price, but it would be nice to see SOME separation (if only by 50¢).
Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Yea, movies sure have figured it out. The initial digital prices points for most major movies is between $15 - $20. After a time, most drop to around $10. Eventually, it falls into the under $10 range. Of course, not all. For example, Iron Man which came out in 2008, is still $20. I guess it's still popular enough to command that price point.
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Nope. Prices for Iron Man DVDs ...
Amazon – $7.99
Best Buy – $9.99
Target – $7.99
Barnes & Noble – $15.14
Walmart – $9.83
This is what COMPETITION looks like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Funny, that's kind of what is happening with ebooks. Books that continue to sell, continue to command a premium price point (The Lord of the Ring books and Wheel of Time books are still at $10 per book), other books drop in price over time. One can buy Lord Foul's Bane for $3 in the kindle store. It has nothing to do with collusion and everything to do with what prices the market will pay.
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"Funny" when these books are sold by the Colluding Five. When they're sold by Amazon or an independent, not so much.