CompuServe Messages

Jan In general CDs are overpriced if bought at full retail price. Often the same product can be bought in book form for a lot less. As an example consider the OED. This is available at around the 90 pound sterling (say $140) in the miniturized book format with the magnifying glass, yet the asking price for the CD is 495 pounds. Thus you are not paying for intellectual property (the 90 pound price covers that) and you are certainly not paying media costs as these will be less than the book. The only reason is to exploit a certain market. For the OED I would pay up to the $150 – $170 mark. This price point would be an acceptable point for the large encyclopeadic works. For lesser works (say Cinemania) a $40 mark would be better. I have bought this at $65 so this work is approaching the right price point. The problem for me (and others like me) is that now we have our new toy its useless without the disks so we have to stump up the asking price or the thing becomes a high priced audio player. Steve