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Selling books below cost is not a real market price. Amazon was threatening the pricing of the hardback books where publishers make most of their money. Of course the customer doesn't care if they get such a price break. Not in the shirt term anyway....just lie people were perfectly happy to buy cheap Japanese steel when they dumped it on the US market in order to run US steel companies out of business.
I am quite happy to buy a kindle book at less than the cost Amazon paid for it myself. I just understand why the publishers put a stop to it as it became clear that Amazon's business practice was threatening their main revenue source...the hard back book.
Yes, hard back booked are discounted. They are not discounted anything like Amazon's $10 price for every book on the NYT Best Seller's list all the time.
The market price is the price at which both the producer and the consumer are happy. Consumers were happy at $10 and would be even more happy at $1. However tie publisher has a higher number in mind. In time, there will be a new equillebrium found.
Lee
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