It's pretty interesting: this was bound to happen since digital copies are no longer the cheap variant that costs nothing to reproduce, but are becoming the more convenient version for which people pay a premium....
Yep, Amazon lost the battle with the publishers to price ebooks their way, hence the illogical prices. I own a kindle but I am not purchasing as many books as before. I have found that $5 is sort of a magic number for me, any more than that and I will just skip it, any less and I'll seriously consider buying it if I am interested. Since I do know, more or less, what is going on behind the scenes with the digital distribution model, there is no way I am spending more than that on a digital book, and with DRM added on top.
I find this happening more and more often, quite often I'll have to pay as much as a $5 premium for the digital version.
I believe Amazon sets the price for the hardcover, whereas the Kindle version says "this price was set by the publisher".
Also seeing $15.99 for the Kindle version.
Weird, it's showing up as $15.99 for me.
Seems like there a general trend toward lower pricing transparency in online retail. Airlines have been doing this for years...sucks that it's spreading everywhere.