Quite an interesting way to frame the discussion. The question addressed is actually "How much will people pay to read a file on a Kindle?". If I buy a real

Quite an interesting way to frame the discussion. The question addressed is actually "How much will people pay to read a file on a Kindle?". If I buy a real book, I have a physical object I can lend or give away. If I "buy" an e-book that's encumbered with DRM, I'm buying a license to view a work on a specific device. Amazon can remotely disable various features I've already paid for. Make the ebooks portable (e.g. PDF) and DRM-free and you can directly compare them to paper, but not until then.