People don't want to pay much 1. because they're cheap, but also 2. because they realise that digital distribution is a near 0-cost business.
The music industry can't pretend it's still offering the same value to artists and customers as it did in the pre-internet age. They haven't adjusted to that, and that's their error.
The value isn't in the distribution though, it's in the content. I'd be interested to know the cost of distribution in the pre digital age (when economies of scale are factored in obviously). I don't think it would be that high. If you look at iTunes the price of an album is significantly lower than it was on CD 10 years ago. In the UK it's around £10 digital now and before digital would've been £15-20 on a CD.
Pre-digital age distribution: 1. create master-copies. 2. Send master-copies (physically!) to the various printing plants. 3. print as many copies as you think it will be reasonable to sell. 4. hire security to prevent leaks of pre-release albums from the plant 5. send the media through your distribution-network, by trucks, trains, planes and boats to world-wide storage-facilities while waiting for a synchronized world-wide release. 6. send copies to actual brick and mortar stores, who may or may not sell all copies (I can't recall if they have the right to return unsold items.)
Remember that all those transports, plants and storage facilities not only cost money to establish, but cost money to keep running too. Unsold media kept in storage is now waste you need to pay to dispose of. And you paid to get it there in the first place. This is a loss-factor you need to factor into all actual sales.
Now compare this to the digital age: 1. Create a master-copy. 2. Encode in a format understood by HW decoders commonly found in consumer-devices (i.e. MP3/ACC) 3. Put on a webserver. 4. No distribution-network needed. You're on the internet, remember? 5. Bandwidth costs per sold copy: $0.000000000000000000000000000000001
I'm not an industry insider so I obviously don't know the concrete numbers, but it doesn't take a mastermind to arrive at the conclusion that operating in a pre-digital age was expensive and provided a valuable service. Thus warranting a significant markup.
In the internet age none of those services are needed nor wanted. Now they're just a middleman wanting money based on a historical role.
The music industry can't pretend it's still offering the same value to artists and customers as it did in the pre-internet age. They haven't adjusted to that, and that's their error.