--- On Tuesday, January 09, 2001 14:57 jpr@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu wrote --- > I must admit that I find it difficult to understand how Howard's book > has risen from the $60-70 in 1995 to the $170 price in 2001.... > According to what they used to teach me during my mandatory Marxist Philosophy classes, the price on the product is determined not by how much profit the seller hopes to make, but by how much money the buyer is willing to spend. If that conviction is not far away from the truth, then whom should we blame more for the pricey books - Amazon.com or the buyers? By the way, how much is THAT book in the window (ISBN: 0471161322)? ;-) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471161322 Speaking of greedy publishers, a lot of authors are trying to cut "the middle man". See for example, Steven W. Smith's web site at http://www.DSPguide.com. Terrific book! And it is free in the PDF format. One important argument against PDF is that most people hate to read from the monitor and printing 600 pages is not much cheaper than buying from Amazon. This situation may change soon, since many companies are working on some sort of inexpensive e-Paper. See for example, http://www.parc.xerox.com/dhl/projects/gyricon/ Of course, e-Paper will never reduce demand on "glossy and leathery Balzac's". But that's for the "wealthy 1 percent". Yuri Kudinov, postdoctoral fellow St.Vincent Medical Center Los Angeles, CA 90057-2354 Disclaimer: This posting contains no "subliminable" messages.
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