Software’s hard pricing

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Shockingly, before ascending to the heights of social sophistication associated with being economist, I was a geek. I remember spending months searching through computer stores for a disk of the computer game “Elite.” When I finally came across a copy, the retailer could have charged what they liked, as scarcity of local physical supply met insatiable demand.
Modern software pricing should be global in concept. Physical purchases in-person from a store are an archaic idea. The virtual nature of software with online purchase implies a commoditization, with little regional variation in pricing.
In reality, significant price difference persist. US “software and accessories” consumer prices rose over 25% in the past year, making it one of the very few US core goods prices experiencing high and accelerating inflation. But software prices in Europe and the UK are still falling.
The US data includes accessories like memory drives, which are separated in other economies’ data. While memory drives have rising inflation, it is not enough to account for all of the price difference. Currency effects can contribute too, but not enough. It might be that the costs of AI are more prominently discussed in the US, leaving the US consumer more tolerant of price increases that are not acceptable internationally.