I understand the costs involved, I used to be a publisher doing everything traditionally until the costs were unrealistic. China is cheaper. I didn’t consider China as warehousing was also very expensive. Print on Demand (POD) is much cheaper, and (apart from formatting) free to upload on several platforms. Simple these days. But I am no longer a publisher.
My career path is the arts: Writer — Self Publisher (where I mastered the book skills to self publish) — Traditional Publisher — POD Publisher (didn’t take off, so I used it to re-release previously (small press) published novels and stories) — Writer.
The price of books in NZ is not cheap like it used to be. Books are $30+ (WTF?!?) unless discounted. (example)
According to the Financial Times, two British publishing houses are removing content the CCP might find offensive, just so they can save on publishing costs meant for western distribution. Octopus Books and Quarto deleted references to Taiwan and Hong Kong and changed character nationalities, changing Taiwanese to “East Asian.”
These changes were made as the printers said the law disallows them to print such material.
There are alternate printing locations that are used, but price pressures prevent relocating entire cataloges.
These big companies always have shareholders, who must be satisfied and by satisfied, I mean: more profit.