I do often wonder though if there's pressure on these people to make book buying sound like they're going cheaper to derail the masses from adopting e-books.
-Paul Keith
My impression of "the masses" (i.e. people I know who buy lots of books and have bought/are considering an ebook reader, but don't follow tech news or tech in general and are blissfully unaware of the debate about ebook prices):
All say they hate the idea of losing the feel of a real book, the tactile pleasure, the smell. All love the idea of carrying around lots of books in a small device. All are impressed with the screens on the latest generation of ebook readers. Everyone over 40 loves the fact that you can vary font size! (this is a huge selling point).
And my point is...the price of books is hardly ever mentioned as a barrier/reason to purchase. They all spend lots of money on books, and they'll continue to do so. Real books, ebooks, whatever. Price is always an issue, everywhere, but I've never heard a member of the "masses" complain about the price of an ebook, or say they should be cheaper than they are. They do moan if the ebook is dearer than the print version. This happens quite often these days, due to Apple's scandalous deal with book publishers, which allows publishers to set ebook prices. This will hopefully be declared unlawful in the UK, as it is essentially a re-introduction of the Net Book Agreement*. The Office of Fair Trading is already investigating.
*For non-UK readers, the NBA was an agreement between publishers and bookstores to fix the price of books. Declared unlawful in 1997.