Quote:
Originally Posted by mcl
i said there were opportunity costs to writing, and that I wouldn't go into them. You simply chose to ignore that.
You're assuming that ebooks should cover the costs of producing paper books. I am staunchly opposed to that. They could cover their own costs, nothing more. Your argument is flawed, since it would only be valid if the editing, etc. did not occur except in cases where ebooks were produced. Since they occur anyway, you cannot blame ebooks for the fact that many books never recoup their publishing costs. Ebooks are not a scapegoat to be used by the publishing industry to cover those costs, and their prices should not reflect that. If the industry wants to view profits from ebooks as offsetting print costs, that's fine. But to price them such that those costs are reflected in the ebooks' prices is fundamentally wrong in my opinion, and I refuse to support such a pricing model.
The publishers delay ebook releases to prop up physical book sales, not to recoup costs of publishing.
I do not have a position on the release time of ebooks. I'd be happy to wait. But I am deeply opposed to pricing ebooks such that they are intended to prop up the print market, in the same way I'd be opposed to MP3s priced to prop up the CD market.
Punitive pricing of new media in order to prop up old media markets is a shortsighted and, frankly, stupid practice by myopic, Luddite publishers of media who would rather fight tooth and nail to preserve their existing business models rather than adapt to the new media and increase their profits.
As a case study, look at wax cylinder recordings in the 1800s. Or the sheet music market. or piano rolls. Or cassette tapes. VHS tapes. CD-Rs. DVD-Rs. DVDs. CDs. Records (from 78s to 33 1/3 to 45s). To current streaming media and digital media.
In every case, the media publishers fought desperately to cling to their old business models. In every case, they eventually capitulated. In every case, their cries of "the new media is destroying our market!" were not only wrong, but they wound up profiting more from the new media than they ever did from the old media.
The RIAA has made this mistake. Repeatedly. The MPAA likewise. And now the publishing industry, rather than learning from history, is repeating it in spades.
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Absolutely great post from start to finish.