So I wanted to buy a copy of the manifesto (I had just a pdf till now) I know it ain’t necessary but I’m building a library so it would’ve been nice, so anyway I went on the ebay and found this copy for cheap, just over 1 euro plus shipping.

On the front of the book, as clear as day, there was written “100 pages, 1000 Lire”

So I investigated

So there was this publishing house in the 90s that had this scheme “100 pages 1000 Lire” at that time 1000 Lire were worth about 60 euro cents today, sooo how did they make money? Its a normal paperback made of normal paper, its 100 pages and the necessary commodities would have probably costed more.

I can’t sleep till I find the truth

Edit: if there’s something to take from this deliry is that:

1)I got shafted because the book costed less in the 90s

  1. buy books local if you can, local used books can be real cheap, real story ive seen them as low as 35 cents for entire tomes, shipping can be a real hamper expecially when your government gifted your postal service to private oligarchs (but that’s a rant for another time comrades 😁)
  • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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    1 year ago

    No idea about Italy, but books are generally horribly overpriced in capitalist countries. In socialist Poland average paperback book was, if calculated to purchasing parity in Poland today, around 15-20 PLN (around 3-4 EUR), where today similar or even the same because reeditions books cost anywhere from 40-60 PLN, hardbacks can be 60-120 PLN and albums with good paper and a lot of pictures 150+

    Also, compare the paper books with ebooks prices for the same books. The difference is most likely the real cost of physical book production and distribution. In Poland it is around 8 PLN currently.

  • @redtea
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    31 year ago

    What else could you get for 1000 lire in the 90s?

    If they really would only get you €0.60 worth of goods today, it could have been 1) subsidised, 2) non-profit, 3) a loss-leader, or 4) sold in the millions (needing less profit per sale).

    This does seem to be the case with older books. I always assumed it was because e.g. €0.60 went a lot further in the 90s.

    • @frippa@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      ok so i calculated the purchasing power n it was about 76 cents, must have been really cheap paper, those were also the years in which our half-assed social democracy kinda died (a bit before tbh) so maybe yes, it was just cheap paper.

      Edit: it was probably option number 4, they sold a looot of copies, maybe not of the manifesto but of other texts of that chain. Making like 10 Cents a copy but on millions of copies is still millions of euros

      • @redtea
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        21 year ago

        Interesting. I look forward to the day that books are cheap, libraries are everywhere and well stocked, and all digital media is freely shared without threat of litigation.