After Apple: Will e-book prices fall again?

In a widely publicized case, Apple was ruled to have colluded with e-book publishers on retail prices. The question under discussion today at RetailWire: Will this cause a massive change in e-book pricing, for the benefit of the consumer? I don’t think so, at least not as long as Amazon drives the overall tone of the marketplace:

I don’t see a big change in e-book pricing resulting from this ruling. A recent news story documented the diminishing discounts being offered by Amazon, and anybody who buys books on their Kindles can attest to this. There may be more deep discounting of a handful of best-sellers, but overall Amazon continues to gain pricing power especially with B&N pulling back from the e-reader market.