Ebooks are most definitely not pure profit. I mean, you can look at the balance sheets for any publicly traded publisher, or a large book retailer, and notice t

Ebooks are most definitely not pure profit. I mean, you can look at the balance sheets for any publicly traded publisher, or a large book retailer, and notice that they are not swimming in piles of money. You may not think you take value from the publishing ecosystem (discovery, marketing, editing, publishing, etc. of content, and reliable delivery, storage, security, etc. of retail), but you probably actually do. And, you know, even if you actually don't, you can just go right ahead continuing to buy 1.99 or 3.99 or whatever is the "right" price of ebooks either direct from author websites (although it's still really hard to get the margins down to zero unless you're meeting on street and paying cash and accepting delivery over a thumb drive or something) or from Amazon or B&N's self-publishing programs. In any case, comments like this are really hard to square with how much criticism my employer (B&N: although I don't work on ebooks, and certainly this is my own opinion) has gotten from investors for the money they've put into NOOK and the ebook ecosystem.