One of the issues around net neutrality is whether you are creating different rates or charges for different content providers. That's the big controversy here. So you have big, wealthy media companies who might be willing to pay more and also charge more for spectrum, more bandwidth on the Internet so they can stream movies faster. I personally, the position of my administration, as well as a lot of the companies here, is that you don’t want to start getting a differentiation in how accessible the Internet is to different users. You want to leave it open so the next Google and the next Facebook can succeed.
— President Obama
So why do the paperback versions of a $15 hardback book generally cost $7 - $8? Paperbacks as well as Hardbacks still need all of the above support personnel you speak of. At $9.99 Amazon is STILL coming in above the paperback price of most books.
I'm sorry, but the arguments that Scalzi puts forth above are absolute shit, and you have the hint of schill about you. There is no reason that the electric format should cost anywhere near the cost of a hardback. Hell, IMHO the electronic format should really be below the paperback price because of the lack of dead leaf being used for its production... but I can understand the industry's desire to hold on to their model and I feel, much as Amazon seems to, that $10 is a reasonable compromise.
If they REALLY want to milk the consumer they should use a similar model for E-books that they use for paperbacks; as in, release the first edition hardback at $15, wait a month for sales to start becoming stale, then release the paperback and E-book at the same time at the reduced rate.
UNIX is hot. It's more than hot. It's steaming. It's quicksilver lightning with a laserbeam kicker. -- Michael Jay Tucker