What I think the publishers could do to support ebooks while still making a profit on pbooks is to include an ecopy of the book when the pcopy is purchased (especially if the pcopy is hardback). This way when we want a "backup" library in hardcopy we have it and don't beat up the pcopy since we're reading the ecopy.
I recently purchased a David Weber hardcopy novel and was supprised that it came with a CD containing ecopies of not only that book but several previous ones (that I had already purchased and had in my personal library). That made me want to buy from Baen again.
