It seems to be a legit website, but, on the other hand, this wasn't a post about CO poisoning.
250
That's the way that software is handled. I'm thinking it goes back to the days when computers were scarcer and software was custom-written and expensive.
Maybe if they actually thought of software/e-books as an actual physical product that people buy, then might sell as used, or hand over with a computer they're selling, they'd have a better way to deal with it.
(I know that there's software I'd buy used, if it were available, because while I have a need, it doesn't require the latest version, and maybe the latest version wouldn't run on my system.)
... and I tend to want spaces at both ends ...
Serge: supporting membership.
Those aren't the prices I'm seeing on Amazon, either, but I'm not looking in the Kindle store, but in the general book section. (Where they're running 5-8 dollars.)
177
I was expecting it a lot earlier than it happened.
But not with the eyelets and ruffles. *g*
(Not, I think, a lurker in the usual sense, or he'd have had a better idea of what he was getting into.)
182
I wasn't having any trouble with the second sentence. Either one of them.
(I understand that there are somewhat similar methods currently in use by Various Government Agencies.)
Anyone who thinks being sick for five weeks is fun is probably either a child or someone who has never been sick for more than two weeks.
Signed, someone who had bronchitis for a month, complete with codeine-laced cough medicine. While on jury duty.
150
Probably because Hachette isn't well-known in the US, and Macmillan is.
84
Missing the point there.
It's that you're actually only renting that e-book, and that means it's more expensive over time than a physical book. You can't resell the e-book, you can't legally give it away, and it's possible for the vendor to remove it from your reader without your permission.
I've lived in areas where more people than you would expect had computers, but not necessarily Internet access. They'd go to a library for that.
Also, there are a surprising number of homeless people who use computers at libraries - they're not going to have readers, they don't have desktop computers, and they're not going to be buying a lot of books in any form.
Can someone point me at this strange universe where publishers don't set prices, booksellers don't discount, and book production costs nothing?
Mike, given that brick-and-mortar bookstores sell remainders and best-sellers for discounts all the time, I don't see your point.
Meg, the difference is that Amazon is a bookseller, not a publisher. Not selling an entire line of books is, well, not very smart.
Publishers are not obligated to put out everything that comes to them, but if they think it will sell, they'll try to find a way. (That's editing.)
Avram @ 107
They'll only get in trouble, I think, if they're all setting their prices to the same levels. Or at least that's about the only thing that will get pricing looked at.
51
You're making the mistake of assuming that editors, artists, authors, and all the production and distribution people work for free.
It costs money to produce stuff, even if it only exists as bits in computers.
(For that matter, servers require people to run and maintain them, keep their software and their firewalls up-to-date, and pay the bills for their power and communication lines.)
35
Isn't that the kind of behavior (price-fixing) that anti-trust laws were created to stop?
My understanding (IANAL) is that anti-trust laws are intended to preserve competition.
So if several publishers do this, it's probably still legal, as long as they aren't getting together to set prices for their stuff or divide up the market in some way. They have to be able to prove it's all done independently, too.
I have the feeling that the people who believe that publishers are on the way out are the same people who put up websites that are unreadable because of their choices of font size, color, and background.
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