[DawnFalcon]

Steve: They're doing away with the equivalent of DRM and putting other measures into place, exactly as Impulse is doing for games. There is no consumer tolerance for DRM: It's a dead letter sooner or later, and the later it happens the more the industry will lose to the darknet in the meantime. Their choice.

And no, the shops haven't raised their prices. They're saving money on the measures, because it lets them pass more people through the payment end of the store more quickly (higher customer satisfaction, which is directly tied to repeat custom) and dedicate less staff to checkouts (major, major saving!). Yes, more stuff is nicked. But the overall rates of theft are already low, and don't start to compare with the savings.

This is simply good business sense. Again, why do you want to drag the online book industry through the entire thing again, from start to end? Let's skip the bit with the pain where people turn to the darknets, allready!