E-books at local libraries: a fight between publishers and librarians
&gt; There’s a tension in e-book pricing generally between consumer expectations that a digital file will be less expensive than a physical copy and the reality that very little of the cost of making a book is tied up in the physical format<p>There&#x27;s more to this than the cost of making a book. As a consumer, a physical thing inherently has more value than a digital one because it <i>keeps</i> the value after I buy it. I can lend the book to someone legally after I&#x27;m done with it. I can sell it, trade it, or donate to a library.<p>With a digital book (or any other digital good) I lose all of that. Since I&#x27;m getting so much less, why should I pay the same price?<p>The digitization makes it impossible for businesses to control the distribution of their products, unless they go full DRM and effectively prevent people from owning the things they buy – but in that case, there should be no surprise that people don&#x27;t want to pay quite as much.