@arkandel said in Do you buy your RPG books?:
Digital files, when downloaded, don't take away anything from someone's inventory.
But it reduces the potential market pool by one: You. Each 'one' reduces the market pool, which reduces the selling power of that item. If they were following elementary market rules, they would respond to a decrease in demand (people paying for it) with a decrease in price. This has worked for the music industry and briefly for the TV industry, though I think as the streaming platforms fracture the number of people willing to pirate will rise again.
Atoms are easy to count, but those things that can be converted to bits are being converted to bits and the atomic-based economics can't be applied wholesale anymore. The movie industry is trying to hold on with both hands and their teeth to their control, and that content providers are also access providers (or strong-arming them, vis a vis Youtube) will certainly help the businesses charge what they believe is right rather than let market forces dictate.
Apple and Spotify are making money hand over fist (tho one is only now crawling into the black) because that's what the market wants. If video wasn't so expensive to make then maybe the same could happen there, though I should reiterate just how much I'm enjoying The Good Place and that can't be expensive at all.
Anyway, most writers don't get paid much. Most of us don't get paid much, but still, buy things from writers you especially like.