For most things, if you opt to download the material rather than get physical media, if there’s any difference in price, it’s cheaper to download. Think of iTunes v CDs, or software that you can download from many sellers. There’s no postage or packaging to account for, and minimal physical production costs.
So it’s odd then, that this morning I got an email from Adobe to my work address trying to get me to upgrade to Photoshop CS3, but which gives cheaper prices if I pay for the physical media rather than download a large file. I realise that thousands of people downloading 700+ MB is a significant bandwidth cost. But sending me a big box through the post should not be cheaper.
Try it yourself.
Very odd.