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Originally Posted by ApK
Books are often not fungible. Sure, if you just feel like trying some new mystery or new sci fi, you can shop by nothing more that the price tag in the genre section.
But more often, people "need" a PARTICULAR book. If I'm assigned a book at school or work, I can't say "it was too expensive, I'll read something else." Or you REALLY want to finish the cliff hanger in the last book of the series!
I get it's not GUNPOINT, but it is various forms of legitimate pressure that may make you shell out more than you really think it's worth.
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I’m going to quibble with some of your language. I take your textbook point; that textbooks have always been expensive doesn’t negate it. And yes, students don’t have much choice in the mattter. However, that’s a horse of quite a different color from wanting to read the book following a cliff hanger, which I don’t think qualifies as a “need” even in quotes. As far as entertainment goes, books really are pretty fungible. It would be different if there weren’t a lot of books out there that are cheap or free to access.
I also think that when you buy something, you can’t pay more than you think it’s worth. It might be more than you think it’s intrinsically worth, but other factors have to bring it up to the actual cost. You can pay less than you think something’s worth, but you really can’t pay more.
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If you feel the price is unjustly high (even allowing for free market capitalism), it's perfectly legitimate to push for better prices in ways other than merely not buying.
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Sure. Although I don’t know how you go about it. Moral suasion? Government price-fixing?