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Tuna · 07-01-2009, 09:55 AM

I'm not sure about the 'no inherent value' argument.

Any product has three basic costs:

1. The intellectual cost (the effort involved in designing a car, or writing a book)
2. The manufacturing cost (printing a paper book, building a car)
3. The delivery cost (getting the product to the consumer)

Now, a 'fair' price is one that covers these three costs. If your product has an audience of one, then they've got to cover all those costs. If it has an audience of thousands, then the cost can be shared between them.

Digital distribution doesn't really change that equation. Sure manufacturing and delivery costs drop enormously (but they don't become zero, whatever the utopians would have you believe), but the creative cost remains. The audience may potentially grow, but in an environment where creative works are highly available, the theoretically large audience is actually divided by the huge range of products on offer. The end result is that the audience for an ebook is not any larger than it would be for a pbook.

My point here is that digital products may have no theoretical 'value' (any more than you can ascribe a value to a pulped up bit of dead tree), but they have a cost that should be met. If you are one of an audience of a thousand that all want a given ebook, just because it's free to reproduce doesn't free you from the obligation to pay for the creative effort that went into that book, or the infrastructure costs that were incurred getting the book into your e-reader.

07-01-2009, 09:55 AM	#4
Tuna Zealot Posts: 114 Karma: 325 Join Date: May 2009 Device: Cool-ER	I'm not sure about the 'no inherent value' argument. Any product has three basic costs: 1. The intellectual cost (the effort involved in designing a car, or writing a book) 2. The manufacturing cost (printing a paper book, building a car) 3. The delivery cost (getting the product to the consumer) Now, a 'fair' price is one that covers these three costs. If your product has an audience of one, then they've got to cover all those costs. If it has an audience of thousands, then the cost can be shared between them. Digital distribution doesn't really change that equation. Sure manufacturing and delivery costs drop enormously (but they don't become zero, whatever the utopians would have you believe), but the creative cost remains. The audience may potentially grow, but in an environment where creative works are highly available, the theoretically large audience is actually divided by the huge range of products on offer. The end result is that the audience for an ebook is not any larger than it would be for a pbook. My point here is that digital products may have no theoretical 'value' (any more than you can ascribe a value to a pulped up bit of dead tree), but they have a cost that should be met. If you are one of an audience of a thousand that all want a given ebook, just because it's free to reproduce doesn't free you from the obligation to pay for the creative effort that went into that book, or the infrastructure costs that were incurred getting the book into your e-reader.