> It’s crazy how the prices of books have gone up

I think it depends. I used to buy hardcopy books on Amazon, in particular scientific books. They were usually worth their money, but still it did cost a lot.

When Amazon Prime came, I noticed the quality of amazon went downwards a lot. There were additional reasons - e. g. the USA under Trump becoming hostile to Europeans - so I decided to abandon Amazon completely. Never regretted that move either. But for the most part, I also stopped buying hardcopy books; the cost was one factor, but storing books was another big one. I still have books but I don't want to keep on adding more and more books that I may read once and then never again. For the most part I transitioned into .pdf books (I hate epub format though, so I don't use that).

Some time ago I had to purchase a book for a local discussion; it did cost less than 10 euros, so that was not much (it was a thin book though, about 200 pages in DIN A5 format, e. g. the small format). That cost was not too high. I am not a "zero hardcopy books" person, but the books I purchase are significantly fewer compared to, say, 15 years ago. I still like books; easier to concentrate without being distracted, but I kind of prefer not having a lot of books in my apartment. It just is easier to organize things when I don't have to shuffle the physical location of hardcopy books.

The books on amazon were very expensive though, so I disagree on the title chosen. I think amazon became too expensive and the quality became worse. People who still use amazon should seriously consider whether they really need amazon in their life.