As others have posted, most of the publisher's cost is a fixed up-front cost. The marginal cost of publishing is relatively minor. For ebooks it's almost nonexistent. So if they were to reduce their price, I would get a lot more books, while contributing just as much to the publishers' fixed costs. Since I'm always adding new things to my wishlist, and purchasing about ten percent of the new additions, it's unlikely that they'll run out of things to sell me.
What's more, chances are good that I'd spend more money. Aside from the expense, what keeps me from buying more books is the sheer physical space they occupy. If I could get electronic versions of them all, in formats that let me back them up, copy excerpts from them, etc., then that would cease to be an issue. But a restrictive DRM-encumbered file gives me less utility than a paper book, so I've been unwilling to spend as much money for it.
>I would get a lot more books, while contributing just as much to the publishers' fixed costs.
Gain for you, no gain for them.
>it's unlikely that they'll run out of things to sell me.
I find this hard to believe. Currently it sounds like you spend up to your max periodically. If every buying cycle you were able to completely empty your list, it's hard to imagine that there would never be a time that that list wouldn't be less then your max budgeted about, as it is now.
>What's more, chances are good that I'd spend more money.
No they're not. You've already explained that you're already spending all that you're comfortable spending. There is virtually no chance that you'd spend more. As I explained, it's much more likely you'd spend less.
>But a restrictive DRM-encumbered file gives me less utility than a paper book, so I've been unwilling to spend as much money for it.
What do you want to do that you can't? It will sync to at least 3 devices (I only have 3 applicable devices, so I don't know if I could push it to more). You can't loan it to people, that's true. You also can't copy it around as a file, but I don't see how that's a meaningful restriction.
The other constraint is the physical space. If I didn't have to worry about that, I'd increase my budget. I can afford to spend more, but with books spilling everywhere in my apartment already I try to keep things within reason.
Unless I break the DRM, I'm tied to the vendor. I have no guarantee that I'll still be able to read the book in 20 years, or read my margin notes. If I'm less fond of the book, I can't sell it when I'm done with it, or give it to a library.
Finally, I think the public benefit of getting more books in more people's hands shouldn't be discounted, given that the Constitution says the whole purpose of copyright is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
What's more, chances are good that I'd spend more money. Aside from the expense, what keeps me from buying more books is the sheer physical space they occupy. If I could get electronic versions of them all, in formats that let me back them up, copy excerpts from them, etc., then that would cease to be an issue. But a restrictive DRM-encumbered file gives me less utility than a paper book, so I've been unwilling to spend as much money for it.