In a typical ebullient forecast, James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst, wrote two years ago that digital book sales would be $2.8 billion by 2015, up from a mere $169 million in 2009. “A very altered publishing world is about to emerge,” his report said. (He said last week that he was not tempering his forecast.)

Publishers, however, did not want to see their product sold so cheaply by Amazon, which would accelerate the shift away from the printed books they still depended on. With the help of Apple, they introduced a new system that gave them greater control over prices, which went up. The Justice Department found this to be illegal collusion and in April, sued.

After the suit was filed, Amazon said it looked forward to lowering prices. The industry braced itself. The Authors Guild predicted the end of the physical bookstore. “Amazon is committed to capturing the U.S. book market by forcibly moving it online, where it can more easily eliminate its competitors,” the guild wrote. Paul Aiken, the guild’s executive director, did not return calls for comment last week.

As the summer wore on and publishers negotiated with the government, Amazon customers began asking why they did not immediately notice a change. “It seems to me that the Kindle books have gone up,” D. Amick wrote in a typical comment on an Amazon forum.

Some say they never expected a price war at all. “The pricing war hasn’t happened because Amazon can’t afford it,” said Nate Hoffelder of the Digital Reader, a site devoted to e-book news and opinion. “The money Amazon lost on e-book discounts in 2008, 2009 was covered, at least in part, by the high price of Kindle hardware,” he said. “Now that the Kindle is being sold so cheap, Amazon no longer has the hardware income to act as a cushion.”

This is debatable — Amazon has always devoted itself to market share rather than profitability — but it is undeniable that the cost of e-readers has plunged much more than the cost of e-books. When the Kindle made its debut it was a big hit at $399. The cheapest model is now $69. Barnes & Noble is selling its cheapest Nook for $79, discounted from $99.

Even as prices fall, though, the dedicated e-reader is losing steam. The market peaked last year, with 23.2 million devices sold, IHS iSuppli said in a report this month. This year, sales will be 15 million. By 2016, the forecast is for seven million devices — as opposed to 340 million tablets, which allow for e-reading and so much more.