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The economics are different, Safari is a niche product and will always be more expensive than something aimed at the general consumer.

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Well, yes. And thus why this will fail.

I want to read O'Reilly books as PDFs. Properly typeset PDFs. And I don't want to buy from anyone other than O'Reilly. And I tried Safari, but it's not the same as reading their books as PDFs.

Here at Manning we plan to keep selling beautifully typeset .PDFs & other formats for many years to come :)

Thanks - it's the only format that I can read code in. I will be throwing more moola your way because of this.

I LOVE Manning! You are amazing and I will keep spending my hard earned money on your books.

I bought your Spring books, and a few others. Next time I want to buy a book, I'll go straight to Manning and not O'Reilly.

How different are the operating costs? What is cost-per-user? Is the smaller audience just an excuse to squeeze for more net revenue?

From the businesses perspective what it costs doesn't matter (as long as they cover their costs), it's about what value the customer perceives and hence how much they are willing to pay.

Exactly! I didn't want to give Safari some sort of a "niche market" pass on a high price without some sort of breakdown on their operating costs (which I don't think will ever see the light of day).

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