Eli5: Why is the purchase price of e-books basically the same as print.

Question

I would expect e-books to be considerably cheaper than printed books, since there are reduced distribution and production costs. Yet the retail price often doesn’t match those savings versus an e-book. I would hope that the authors royalties would reflect some of the savings in production costs.

In: Economics

Answer 1

It’s because to the consumer (or more broadly, the market) the content is where the value is, not the physical object. If the market valued the physical object more than the content, Then you would find ebooks selling for much less or possibly even non existent.