Apple involved in class-action lawsuit over ebook pricing

Really lol? Yea clearly they are out for money considering that e-book prices were lowered. Conveniently TUAW forgets to the back and forth between Mossburg and Jobs when he announced the pricing in advance and how amazons price would be going up in the future, then all of a sudden 5 major publishers change their deals with in a two week period and don't offer teh same deal that they have been using (not just online but in stores like borders too) for many years. Yea clearly nothing fishy is going on.

You can lend e-books depending on where you buy them. Second the manufacturing costs of a paper back book are going to be less then $2, you're not paying them to print it, your paying for the content, editing, and work that went into it. I'm ok paying the same price for the ability to carry my entire library anywhere and the ability to loan my books digitally to friends.

This attitude is the perfect example of the most frequent/glaring economic misunderstanding I see. To clear things up:

Companies do not set prices based on cost of production, they set prices based on what the market is willing to pay. When you have strong competition, the prices will come down - companies who cannot match those low prices go out of business. There is no business formula that sets an exact price, something like Cost of Product = Retailer Markup+Production Cost+Advertising+Shipping+(8% ROI). Instead the formula in use looks more like Cost of Product = (The highest dang price we can set while still moving as many units as possible).

In the ebook industry, the prices can be raised because each company has a monopoly on its particular books. The prices are lowered because the difference in value I put on Book A vs Book B is limited. But ultimately, complaints about ebook pricing is silly. Ebooks in general are incredibly cheap... in the sense of completely free if you are willing to read the classics or some non-mainstream books - there are enough free ebooks available that a person could go their entire life and only read free ebooks. Complaints about other products can be a bit more understandable - you cannot get bread, or cars, or plane tickets for free. It's not a question of a free car vs a Tesla, there is no free car available (and time/age impacts most items negatively, not so with ebooks - they'll be identical at any other time).

With that in mind, people are really saying "I don't want an ebook, I want that new exciting ebook, and I want it for the price I choose." Sounds a little like a child throwing a tantrum to me.

If you don't like the cost, don't buy it. If you place a higher value on reading the book than on using that money for something else, but the book. It's simple.

First off, the model for selling books has alwasy been what amazon does, not that that can't change but 5 major publishers changing that model inside of a month is pretty damming.
Second based on the previous model, any discounts that amazon gave were at it's own profits and not the publishers, they didn't loose anything on the discount.
Also in the previous model publishers could set their own price, amazon pushed it to keep it low but they can charge w/e they want (this is the one part I could be incorrect with so please shoot me with a link otherwise). If amazon wants to discount that and take a smaller cut they can.

With the BS that apple is pulling in the app store with links and even pricing across the board it's pretty obvious to anyone what is going on. Name a single industry that has 5 major players completely change their business model to the same exact thing with in a month? It's impossible unless they were talking to each other.