Keep in mind that books don’t just compete against books. Books compete against mobile games, television, movies, Facebook, blogs, free news sites and more. If we want a healthy reading culture, we have to work hard to be sure books actually are competitive against these other media types, and a big part of that is working hard to make books less expensive.
Books are not other things, so how do you compare? Facebook is free, so should books be free? I can kill two hours on Facebook easy, just by tripping and falling into a rage-hole. Oh, but wait, a Blu-Ray or digital download of a new movie probably $19.99, bare minimum, and that’s only two hours long. A book will last you more than that so … should the book be $19.99? Or maybe a little less, in order to compete? $14.99, maybe. It’s an odd point to make and does little to enforce the argument that e-books should be cheaper just as it would be a bad argument in terms of demanding e-books be more expensive. It’d be like saying ice cream should be cheaper because soup is cheaper.
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