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Originally Posted by rcentros
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Basically, in the U.S., Amazon has a monopoly in eBooks. I think they only restraint on their pricing is what the market will bear. Too high and people will quit buying eBooks. It has nothing to do with competition. They really don't have any.
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In the US, what restrains Amazon's eBook pricing is the publishers since due to agency pricing, they are setting the prices. I know this is counter to some peoples tightly held article of faith that the publishers are evil and only the much beloved and saintly Amazon restrains them, but that the reality of the situation.
Publishers make money by selling books. They are going to price them such that they maximize their profit. Economics 101 says there is a price point where you maximize your profits. Sell it for less, then you sell more books, but don't make any profit off them. Sell it for more, then you don't sell as many books. The fact that the general indie price for this style book moved up to a point fairly close to the publisher price point tends to prove the point.
Note, this style book means authors who write one or two books a year. Authors who churn out a book a month, a la the old pulp writers, use a different business model and have a different price point.
BTW, nice piece on guilds. Historically, guilds have served many purposes at time. They were even used as banks back before banks existed. History can't be reduced to simplistic narratives. History is created by people and people tend to be very complex.