Irrationality in the digital age

I was checking out a book on Amazon.com and, unsurprisingly, got sticker shock. I know, I know... the age of $4.95 popular softbacks has long since passed, but when a popular novel is promoted in a hardcover format at $26... ouch!



But what I saw next surprised me even more.

The DIGITAL (Adobe e-book) version of this book was selling for $19.95. As if that wasn't ridiculous enough, I noticed the following warning:

This title is not compatible with Pocket PCs, PDAs, or other handhelds.

Okay, so let me see if I got this straight. This company is asking me to pay twenty smackeroos for the privilege of squinting to read a non-portable version of a fiction novel?



If this were a reference book of some sort, then I could understand the price.



But charging a customer $20 for bits and bytes that -- at least deliverywise -- cost practically nothing to provide... am I the only person who finds this to be simply loopy?