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I realise the conversion algorithms may be complicated, but once they're written (which they are) then it's just a matter of passing a file through a filter. This is basically free.
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Sorry, it isn't. Each of the 800+ commercial eBooks I've created from manuscripts of authors and cooperating publishers needed a cleaning, fixing, converting, correcting. But even if they are "nice and tidy" files you still have formatting to do to get page breaks, chapters, sub-chapters, etc. right.
Next: if you want the job really to be done, never ever use PDF for converting. Never. You need a clean and well-structured HTML or XML, and that's what hardly any printing publisher has at hand.
So, "someone" (who has to be paid) has to convert the PDF into HTML and to format it correctly. This may actually take more time than running your RTF through Quark Xpress or InDesign to get your print-ready PDF.
Sure, if most publishers had some sense left, they would have kept a DOC or RTF and use that for converting. Sadly, most publishers don't, as can be easily witnessed ... and they let the readers pay today for their short-sightedness.
Heaven, I even had authors whose novels I had to scan, because they deleted their 300 KB(!) DOC file. "Took up too much space, and why keep it? It already got printed". Oh--my--goodness ...
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Why should ebooks get a free ride? Because by and large, they ARE a free ride! No significant extra effort goes into creating an ebook from an existing pbook. No significant extra money goes into storing, distributing, or advertising an ebook created from an existing pbook.
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Even if it were true to some extent (which it isn't), it wouldn't answer what eBooks-only publishers and authors should charge. Surely you don't expect them to give away their product line for free?