Quote:
Originally Posted by jasonkchapman
What does that have to do with the price of potato chips in Peoria? Price is only closely related to variations in cost when there is competition.
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Excellent argument, jasonkchapman! I understand the emotional reaction of people who think prices should be lower for digitized content, but economically it just doesn't work that way.
I still maintain that the value is in the content, not the method in which it is distributed. It may be that the distribution method is worth more on a subjective level, but it is really just your way of delivering to the consumer.
There's the tendency for people to think that anything delivered electronically on the web must be almost free to produce. I worked for Sony for a long time-- it is very costly to run any online business on that scale. I doubt they are actually making a profit on content at this point. There just isn't a large enough user-base. This is more of a long-term investment to support short-term hardware sales... maybe.
I think Sony was smart to shut down their music store and open up their hardware a bit to more content store choices. Personally, I think they will shut down the book store but they probably have some long-term contracts that they have to fulfill first.
I'd love for Sony to give up on their store and offer support for mobipocket, ereader, lit and others. Then there might be some real competition and some prices may go down.