Despite the massive variance in initial investment in the different albums. Just to think of some examples: Pearl Jam: Bunch of guys with guitars; include mic. and camera, and you're done. Rihanna: Advanced sound engineering, post-productiony stuff, dancers, choreography, professional songwriters, etc., etc. Yet the CDs cost the same.
Oh yeah, there can be no other way that that happens. Must've been greedy old guys in a room rubbing their hands together, plotting.
Most cars in the same class and relative features cost the same. Most comparable computers cost similar amounts. Costume jewelry from store to store is similarly priced.
Not everything is a conspiracy. You price things at what people will pay for them, and for many years people gladly paid, and still pay, $13.99 for CDs. You don't have to conspire to come to a similar price point.
I worked in a music store for a number of years, and got gossipy stories from area and regional managers about stuff from label reps and contacts. There were a few more majors back then, but it always felt very much like collusion more than competition - coordinating of release dates, for one. We couldn't adjust our prices to match competition without clearing it first with HQ. Some of these were, to some extent, normal retail chain corporate policies, but why were they so worried about some issues? Well, if we violated things, we might lose some deals we had with label X or label Y. (Almost felt like if mfg X preloaded linux on model ABC, they wouldn't get preferential MS Windows licensing prices compared to their competitors.)
