In regards to pricing, it almost feels like the powers to be actually want the format to fail. Why else would you price something so non-competitively?
Just looking at it from a business perspective, I can imagine the following scenario:
At the beginning of the new millennium, having witnessed the internet boom and the Napster-fueled collapse of the recording industry, publishers are terrified about the collapse of their own industry. Determined to keep it from happening, they elect to invest a large sum in developing ebook product and the hardware/networking infrastructure to support it. They spend 6 or 7 years supporting that infrastructure, but it never takes off in a big way, and they consistently lose money on the proposition.
Along comes the biggest recession since the Great Depression, and book sales across the board, which have been losing ground for decades, fall through the floor - ebook sales collapse as well. Corporations restructure in an attempt to find a way back to profitability. One part of that restructure is that ebooks lose their subsidy.
Then Amazon introduces the Kindle, and sets something of an industry standard for an ebook price: $10.00. S&S, which hasn't been making a huge ROI on their ebook line, adjusts their price to match.
Raising the price of ebooks seems a better alternative to killing the product entirely. The bean counters raise the price, which may end up killing the product for them -- but them's the breaks.
Ebooks will likely live on, as something of an upscale luxury, rather than a cheaper-than-dirt alternative for those who find the price of mass market paperbacks to be too high.
It's not a conspiracy, it's just the interplay of market forces in a free-market economy. Those who buy ebooks may be passionate about the platform; there just aren't enough buyers to make it economically viable at a bargain price point.
(I'm thinking brainstem sucking parasites, here...and not the cute ones either).
