The ridiculous pricing of ebooks on Amazon in the last few years has forced me to alternate sources. I'm not interested in paying through the nose for something that's far cheaper to distribute than a printed book. In today's market Kindle doesn't offer any value proposition.
An ebook is only marginally cheaper to distribute than a printed book. If you're doing a reasonable sized print run, it's only going to cost you a dollar or two to print a book.
Most of the cost is in labor to write and edit the book, which still needs to happen for ebooks.
Printing is only one of many costs, though. Shipping, returns, expen$ive retail space for physical inventory, salary and benefits for retail clerks, utilities, insurance, shoplifting losses...
When I'm buying something, I'm not thinking much about their margins. For me, it's mostly about value.
An ebook is searchable, gives me instant access to a dictionary, doesn't take up space in my house, I can read in the dark, it's more comfortable to hold, and I can set the font to a size that works for my aging eyes. That $10 ebook of The Dog Stars is a much better value for me than a $4 paperback copy.
Paper books have their place too. For example, I want physical cookbooks that I can leave open on a stand as I work in the kitchen.
For me, a 66-year-old who's been reading voluminously for about 60 of those years, the value proposition of the Kindle (or probably just about any ereader, probably) is:
1. I don't have to store all the physical books I would have acquired over the decades.
2. I can carry around a large number of those beloved books with me at all times.
3. I can vary the font size, which my ageing eyes appreciate.
