Ok, then the other thing you're missing is that distributors also get a chunk of the ebook. You said ebooks have "no middlemen" but that's blatantly false, Amazon is the emperor of ebook middlemen. I suppose publishers could try selling ebooks directly but then they lose the Kindle platform + Amazon's reach, so Amazon charges for that service. They are a middleman.
Ok, then the other thing you're missing is that distributors also get a chunk of the ebook. You said ebooks have "no middlemen" but that's blatantly false, Amazon is the emperor of ebook middlemen. I suppose publishers could try selling ebooks directly but then they lose the Kindle platform + Amazon's reach, so Amazon charges for that service. They are a middleman.