Not a rhetorical question. Are they more affordable now in 2024 ?
How much does the existence of open access journals affect the affordability overall ?
How much does the existence of open access journals affect the affordability overall ?
A price of a book is a price of the "data" inside (copyright) + price of paper, printing, binding, packing material and distribution
A price of an ebook is a price od the "data" inside (copyright) and the price of cheaper digital distributon.
So, you save on paper, boxes, trucks, you often also save on retailers (if you sell directly), and you want more money for that? No paper for me, and you also take resale options away.. and for more money?
Just the resaleability is a scam... if you bought it, you own it. If buying isn't owning (including reselling, reading on any device, etc.), then piracy isn't stealing.
I'm sure government regulation could solve both problems, but they're more interested in screwing the "normal people" instead.
The downsides of ebooks are that I can't write in margins (if it's nonfiction, I would never write in a fiction book), and the ereader chassis conducts heat better than paper so it's extremely cold at first in the winter. Also footnotes are annoying as shit compared to footnotes in paper media, and tabbing back to a known earlier page (e.g. a map for fantasy novels) is worse UX than in a physical book.
Cost aside, ebooks win almost always, although sometimes I'll buy a nice edition of a book I love to decorate my bookshelf, and when I read paper books I enjoy the things they're better at than ebooks.
(And of course there's audiobooks, where physical media makes little sense)