dear Friends,
I resisted getting into this, but sometimes a little knowledge does not hurt. Egbert Forsten is getting older. He has run his publishing house by himself, and finding himself no longer able to do so, he looked for a home in which he was assured that his standards would be upheld. As far as I know (and in fact I do know a bit about this) there is nothing sinister of the matsyanyāya variety going on here. (And anyone who thinks that buying up indological publishers will make them money is in for a rude awakening.)
As far as Brill's prices go, well, they are a business, but... have you tried to buy a book from anyplace like the Bayerische Academy lately? They have huge subventions, I imagine, but still manage to ask impressive prices. And try to buy an academic book from Japan please. American and British academic books are usually published by University presses or societies, and thus heavily subvented, so the prices are kept down.
I confess that I am not entirely neutral here, as I am involved with several projects with Brill, including a journal and an encyclopedia among others. But the reality is that niche markets don't allow for economies of scale.
There are, to be sure, serious questions about the economics of academic publications, but it would help if these were carried out with more facts and less wild speculation.
apologies for the (sort of) rant, jonathan