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Well to me it's just the book is just as useful to a buyer in as an e-book as it is in paperback (ignoring DRM which I support going away), and the author did the same amount of work on it, so I think their cut should be the same (or more if savings in printing costs can be passed on to them). So e-books CAN (and probably should) COST less, but the scheme should be as such that the author's cut is the same (or higher) per copy sold compared to the print version of the same book.
The software example is pretty hard to counter, and that's an unfair situation IMO. Though I guess you could make an argument that most software written for a PC is likely to be less functional/useful on tiny cell phone screen--so maybe there is less value in it for consumers.
But in any case, I'm just a strong believer that in a world where inflation is constant and cost of living is always increasing, wages per hour, income per copy sold etc. should not go down, but should go up.
Now INCOME can go down as people by fewer copies of your book, or people get laid off or have their hours at work reduced. That sucks, but that's fair. If you need to save money, make me truly work less hours and get paid less hours--that's fair. Don't make me work the same hours, with the same effort, for less pay.
Which is what these furlough days do for us university faculty, and what happens to authors if they start making $3 per copy sold instead of $4 or whatever. I'd be fine with my furlough days if we were allowed to take them on teaching days, cancel classes and thus truly reduced our workload. Rather than expecting us to do the same work and get paid 5% less as I can't not do research work etc. on my days off as the tenure expectations aren't being reduced 5%.
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