[garbal]

As an academic I check out and buy super specialized books all the time. $150 is not too expensive if it can save me a few hours of work by summarizing an esoteric topic, which frequently is the case. The publisher doesn't matter, just the reputation of the author.

This is not beach reading, it is an input to an industrial process.

[notahacker]

It's weird, because HN is usually the first place to downvote people into oblivion for complaining about how outrageous it is that B2B App X costs $15 per month when the majority of software aimed at consumers now sells for 99 cents or is given away for free.

B2B App X generally doesn't have the unique content or extremely niche audience of the hardback, heavily revised version of one's Phd thesis either.

[dalke]

Perhaps because HN readers think they can write equivalent B2B software in a weekend and monetize the result through ads, in-app purchases, and gamification, while they don't think they can write a book or good documentation that others would pay for?