Edit: I pay for netflix, I pay for amazon prime, and I'm a member of a really good tv piracy site. My wife is happy with the TV access we have. My thing is video games so I don't actually care about TV.
I'm fairly certain, without adding it all up, that at $60 we'd save money just buying/library-ing/redboxing, $40's just where I'd start to go "hm, better run the numbers" and there's a chance it'd work out against paying for streaming, so I'd call it a decent upper bound on what I'd probably be willing to pay for such a thing. Hell, I'm paying almost that now, but the fact that I can still only find maybe 1/3 of what I want to watch available on my three services is why Amazon's set not to renew next year and Netflix is on the chopping block soon (3rd service is a cheap, niche one with mostly anime, b-movies, and some original web animation stuff, sticking with it pretty much just because it's cheap).
I click it. It takes me to Amazon, where I am already logged in. I can watch the trailer or "buy" (digital purchase, so "long term rental") it for $20(!). There's no indication I can stream it with Prime. Even knowing it's available I can't figure out how to do it from this screen—I'd have to just search again on Amazon and hope for the best.
Video 'rentals' are grossly overpriced. I've never rented anything from Prime, and their prices would have to drop to about 10% for me to feel like I'm getting value. I think ~$0.25/hr would be fair.
Media companies are resistant to discounting the cost of discrete pieces of content despite the supply of entertaining free video exploding a thousand fold in the past decade.
It was a nice little golden age for a few years, shame things can't stay this way forever because of corporate greed.
Personally I think I'll cancel my Netflix soon. There really isn't much quality content anymore, there have been zero improvements to the recommender system despite users' griping, and the prices keep getting higher.
The market is not about fairness. The prices are about what some segment of the market will pay.
> it is hard not to see that the market is simply not offering the best solution.
They are selling physical books for folks who want the traditional experience and the reuse benefits you describe, and Ebooks for folks who want the convenience of that experience. So they continue to cater to their paying customers.
It doesn’t seem reasonable to follow a race to the bottom with people who pirate ebooks. Some folks just do not pay for content.
One side effect of higher prices of the traditional publishers is that it opens a door to self published authors offering books in the lower price range you mention. These are often quite popular so obviously they are aware of the price point impact but for now are happy with capturing the premium market.
> Compare this with piracy in games, music, and video, which is comparatively rare
Can you cite figures for that? I would expect video and music and pc games to all have far higher rates of piracy.
It's all about perceived fairness. If a price doesn't seem fair and alternatives exists (e.g., paper books, piracy), consumers look elsewhere.
> One side effect of higher prices of the traditional publishers is that it opens a door to self published authors offering books in the lower price range you mention.
The masses want the new John Grisham, Danielle Steel, or whatever is popular right now. The odd self-published author gaining a small audience does not offset this.
> […] but for now are happy with capturing the premium market. […] Can you cite figures for that? I would expect video and music and pc games to all have far higher rates of piracy.
The publishing industry is rather miffed at not getting as far with e-books as they thought they might get. I don't have exact figures (although they shouldn't be hard to find), but publishers and their representative bodies have been complaining about e-book piracy in the media a lot.
In 2014 Dutch research company GfK estimated that only 10% of e-books on e-readers was paid for legally:
https://www.ad.nl/economie/e-readers-staan-vol-met-illegale-...
An interesting related article from a Dutch newspaper from a month ago for who can read it:
https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/keurige-boekendieven...
Nobody bats an eyelash at loading hundreds of pirated epubs on grandpa's new e-reader, and book clubs happily share their digital copies in Facebook groups.
The situation may vary by country, but in the Netherlands the vast majority of people pay for cable television or streaming services like Netflix, buy CD's or tracks on ITunes or subscribe to Spotify, and game on consoles or use Steam. Piracy is marginal; except for e-books, where it is commonplace.
How so? If you have the PDF file, it should be pretty easy to do all of these. Some or all of them may be illegal, but it is not the same as lacking the ability.
If it is DRM-protected, there are still ways around it.
Most importantly, my point is being ignored. I could have used epub instead as an example. It is irrelevant to the point I was making. I am not interested in a war over e-book formats.
E-books lack the ability to share, sell, and pass it on. That's fine, but the market won't bear nearly the same price as a paper book that can do all those things. An e-book should in all fairness cost perhaps a third or fourth of a paper book — i.e., the price of a paperback edition divided by the average number of readers it tends to have. Not pricing the goods accordingly leads to where we are now: mass piracy of e-books and hardly anyone feeling guilty about it.
I don't read e-books myself (I take delight in my collection of paper books), but as far as I know sharing USB-drives filled with thousands of e-books is common in a lot of circles — with middle-aged people in particular. Compare this with piracy in games, music, and video, which is comparatively rare due to the affordable and easy legal alternatives, and it is hard not to see that the market is simply not offering the best solution.