3 ms·

The hardback/ paperback model is that early adopters are charged more and then the price is brought down later for people who are willing to wait. I don't see w

• InclinedPlane 16y ago
  The problem is that consumers are likely to reject, or be upset by, paying more for an identical version. If book publishers got rid of hardbacks and started introducing paperbacks at the same retail price as hardbacks used to cost, the market would probably not respond well. With ebooks it's even worse, since a lot of benefits of books (ability to loan and resell, quality of layout and production, etc.) are lost for ebooks and not necessarily made up for by some of the increases in convenience. I don't think a simplistic initial price premium is the answer to this problem but I also don't know what the answer is.
• kgermino 16y ago
  Yes, that's why the publishers do it but they get away with it because many people see a hardback book as being more valuable than a paperback one despite the fact that they both cost about the same to make. Sure the only people who regularly but hardbacks are early adopters but they don't see themselves as paying extra because they are early adopters they see themselves as paying extra because their buying a better quality hardback book. This is different from a tech early adopter who knows that they are paying extra for the same thing in order to have it first. Yes it could work if people accepted it but I don't see people accepting it without there being something extra (maybe a forward from the author where the story only version of the book isn't released for a few weeks) that they can justify paying extra for.