I think this speaks to the changes in business models in general in this country. Many moons ago it was about making a quality product and a fair profit. Now it's about leeching every dollar possible out of the consumer. As an example, consider a couple years ago when gas was $4+/gallon. We were told it was due to higher crude oil prices, but the oil companies reported record profits that year. Apple does the same thing with their marketing. I can usually get an mp3 player from another company with similar storage capacity for about half the price and in many cases it will be of higher quality.
As mentioned in earlier, we need to protect ourselves from being the uninformed consumers. I think that's part of why many of us spend so much time on these forums. I know you won't find any $4k cables in my system.
Gas is a federally regulated/taxed commodity and has nothing to do with this kind of product. Audio/Video equipment is retail, nothing more, or less. The price is what the market will bear and the saying 'Caveat Emptor' still applies- look for the threads about the White Van scams for proof. Bose and Apple regulate the selling price for their products by making it impossible for their dealers to compete with each other on price, by restricting availability.
It used to be that dealers would have an unspoken agreement that there was enough business for everyone and they wouldn't cut prices too much, selling by overcoming objections with facts (some cases, never) but not by slashing prices. Then, people in many industries got lazy, especially when business was slow. 'On Sale' became a joke because the difference between those prices and every day prices was much less and it didn't make sense to wait if the item only cost a few bucks more, so the daily prices were discounted more. They moved more boxes but made less on each one.
"Now it's about leeching every dollar possible out of the consumer."
Compare that with consumers thinking every item in a seller's inventory should cost half of what they want to charge, without ANY concern for whether the dealer is making a profit, or not. Nobody wants to allow the local guy to make a living and if you want to know why they don't have qualified people selling for them, look around you- the reason is every person who buys based on price. The ones who really piss me off are those who pick the local dealers' brains or get a demo from local dealers and look for the best price online.
Many people don't know that some wholesale companies have a retail or E-tail outlet. This means they buy at distributor price levels and can sell at, or below normal dealer cost. This makes it literally impossible for a dealer to buy from a distributor and make any money on these products. It also removes competition from the marketplace and is illegal, but the FCC has bigger fish to fry, in their opinion, so it often goes unchecked.
Go and talk to a few retailers and you'll see how much of a pain in the azz price shoppers really are and after you do this, think about all of the retailers who couldn't afford to stay in business because of all of the people who only care that they got the best price online but didn't give a rat's azz about the local dealers, who were "charging far too much for the equipment I wanted".