In an ideal world I, as a business owner, provide my customers with the best serve and quality I can at the best price I can. When I fail to do that I expect to lose customers, because it is the customers job to look for the best product, at the best price, to make their hard earned money work for them as much as possible.
That is my basic premise as a business owner, and that is my basic premise as a customer.
Like my current business I am starting up, I could charge more than $5/pound, I could charge as much as maybe $8/lbs. I won't though. My business model numbers predict I'll clear 100 to 135 thousand per year at my current price, and that more than amply rewards me for my efforts. In fact I can probably soak up several years of price increases on my operating costs side before I'll feel impacted enough to raise my prices.
Corporations have a different motivation. They answer to share holders, and all they care about is returns. So as a corporation I would be very strongly encouraged, if not forced, to charge $8/pound rather than $5/pound, not because I need to, but because my investors demand I maximize their returns on their investment. They don't care about "fair pricing", they only care about fleecing the consumers for every penny they can.
To be fair, many small business' have the same philosophy as share holders. I have known people who shut down their business not because they were losing money, not because they weren't making enough money, but because they weren't making as much money as they thought they should. So they shut down a business that was still clearing $60,000/year for him, because he wasn't making the $90,000+ per year he thought he should be making. So he let go of his 6 employees and closed down his business when his lease ran out. Then he got a normal job making about $35/year+ medical and dental.
Personally I thought he was insane, but thats how he thought being a business owner should work, so...
Now as a customer, I have every right to make my money work for me as much as possible. If I can't put it in the stock market, etc... then at the very least I can do is get the best product I can at the lowest price I can find. The internet has been a godsend for this.
I literally have all of my grocery stores, walmart, sears, target, Sams Wholesale, Costco, etc.... bookmarked. Every month when I prepare my shopping list, derived from my monthly menu, I use their websites to see who is selling what for the best price, and make up my shopping lists based on which stores have what at the best price. Doing this, just this month alone, saved me $238 versus going to just one store and buying everything in that one store. I also have several coupon sites bookmarked, and make heavy use of them, which contributed to my saving that $238 substantially. Not to mention the store coupons the stores themselves often provide.
This is just with food. I do this for everything. Tools, car battery, clothing, absolutely everything. My money goes hundreds of dollars further each and every month than someone who does not bother doing any of this, which is a shockingly large number of people. The last time I bought a used car I used the internet to search for deals within 200 miles of me. I had to drive 120 miles, but it saved me over $1200 on my new used car.
So when it comes to RPG books, why should I do things any differently? My habits save me over $5,000/year in comparison to people who don't do things the way I do. By buying my books at Amazon, eBay, etc... I am able to buy way more books than I could if I bought them all at a RPG store. Especially with eBay and similar factored in I am able to buy twice as much as I would at the LGS. So why in the world should I go to the LGS and buy my books there?
Now why is WOTC "evil", well I don't think they are. I think they are making big customer satisfaction mistakes, and as a previous successful business owner, and one who is starting up a new business right now, I am very fully aware of how angering your customers cuts your business throat.
Customers have every right, and every expectation, to be happy with what they buy, and being able to buy it in the first place. WOTC is being extremely foolish to do many of the things they have done, because it does hurt their bottom line. This PDF fiasco will probably hurt them more than anything else they have done. So not only are they being foolish in how they treat their customers, but their stock holders aren't going to be happy either. Sooner or later someone at WOTC is going to be held accountable, and they will be given their golden parachute and someone else will be given a chance to actually run the company in a profit growing manner.
