Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday June 17 2009, @10:47AM
from the still-waiting-on-a-price-cut-to-ten-bucks dept.
narramissic writes "A trifecta of Kindle-related news surfaced this week, with Jeff Bezos speaking at Wired's 'Disruptive by Design' conference on topics including Kindle pricing and business models. And yesterday, reports blogger Peter Smith, 'there was a flurry of blogging activity yesterday stating that Amazon had released the Kindle source code. Once everyone caught their breath, it became apparent that the files in question were just some open source libraries that Amazon had modified (they're being good open source citizens and releasing mods they've made to open source code — good for them!), not the complete source code.' Now, back to the Kindle pricing: According to a post at Wired, Bezos said Amazon opted to sell the Kindle for 'something akin to the actual cost for hardware,' rather than subsidizing the hardware costs and requiring a monthly subscription or requiring the buyer to purchase a certain number of books per month because 'fees and minimum purchase requirements create friction.' Smith has a different take: 'If I'm buying a Kindle from Amazon that enables me to buy books from Amazon, I'm broadcasting a desire to buy Kindle books. I would welcome some subsidization of the hardware since I'm going to be buying content anyway. No, I really think Amazon priced the Kindle the way they did because they thought they could get away with doing so (and they were right, it would seem).' Meanwhile, over at the New York Times, Bezos said 'that he sees Kindle-the-device and Kindle-the-book-format as two separate business models, and that the Kindle iPhone App won't be the last software reader to appear.'"
Selling something at a price less than it costs to produce it is a risky competition tactic to try and gain a market advantage.
It seems unreasonable to me for someone to ask a company to sell their wares at less than it costs to produce it. Amazon could make that choice if there was reasonable competition and they wanted to take the hit to compete (assuming they couldnt be competitive at production cost) but suggesting that amazon take a loss when clearly the market is willing to support production price
Rupert Murdoch has apparently been watching the Kindle closely and has been planning on coming-out with his own version to give away to subscribers of his newspapers. Perhaps Bezos really did have the timing right with the Kindle and it just MAY unseat a large portion of the print periodical industry. Should be interesting to watch, no matter how it works itself out.
Maybe you haven't noticed, but a large portion of the print periodical industry is being unseated without the kindle's help.
What I'd like to see is an e-book reader that fetches my news and favorite comics from tha intarwebs. The first company to come out with it will be rich, guaranteed.
There was a website that did this- it picked up stuff from RSS feeds, compiled so many articles into a document and emailed it to your Kindle. I never used it so I don't know the name or if it's still running (Amazon may have shut it down?).
Amazon didn't shut them down, someone just noted that it could be construed as against the TOS, but efforts at contacting Amazon for legal clarification have not been returned.
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday June 17 2009, @11:57AM (#28363105)
Since I purchased my Kindle 2 I have purchased more individual newspapers than I have in the last 5 years. I like the ability to pick up the Wall Street Journal one day and Boston Globe the next. Also during my commute if I see an article in a paper while reading over their shoulder I immediate go to Amazon and buy that days print.
I think Peter Smith has it wrong and Jeff got it right. I purchased the Kindle at this price point because I was not tied down to any contract. I read a lot of books and with the Kindle I now have them all queued up. Not all of the books were purchased from Amazon. The Pragmatic Programmers is a publisher that gets it and other publishers should take note. I went to there site to see if they were going to off ebooks for the Kindle. Little did I know they already do. I logged into my account and that is when I got an alert telling me that the two ebooks I purchased a year ago have updates. Hmmm... Would be cool if I could trade these in for the Kindle version. BLAM A click of the link and the PDF and Kindle versions were ready for me to download. No extra cost. Now if only Manning and a few other publishers would get this.
Of course Amazon is going to claim the best personal book-reader and business model. But they make even more money if they support other readers, which they have done with iPhone. And that wont be the last. I wonder when someone will break their DRM?
I read this as Bezos saying that they'll support Amazon Kindle ebooks on other "mobile" platforms (a la various smartphones, etc), but that they won't support them on anything that is a direct competitor (a la E Ink-based reader devices) to the Kindle. This view is totally consistent with the words he said.
I read this as Bezos saying that they'll support Amazon Kindle ebooks on other "mobile" platforms (a la various smartphones, etc), but that they won't support them on anything that is a direct competitor (a la E Ink-based reader devices) to the Kindle. This view is totally consistent with the words he said.
I agree with your interpreation. In Bezos' opinion, the iPhone does not compete with the Kindle, it complements it. In my usage, I've found this to be true. I do MOST of my reading on the Kindle, but I do get in a page or two of a book on the iPhone while in the bathroom. It's entirely possible for the iPhone to offer some competition, but I don't think it's a big concern for them- iPhone only customers are still buying their books, after all.
There's no way a Sony Reader would complement a Kindle in a si
First: the DRM has been broken - AZW is the Mobipocket file-format with just one byte changed so a Mobipocket reader software won't accept it. So to break Amazons DRM google for "MobiDeDRM" and "Kindle Mobipocket conversion" - it will be the #1 hit;-).
Now having said that you might notice something: Mobipocket has free to download readers for just about 12 different devices. So if Amazon wanted what you suggest all they had to to is not change that one byte. So in changing that one byte it is a clear signal that that they want there books to be read on Kindle and Kindle alone. And iPhone is just a special exception.
Before you wonder: Amazon owns Mobipocket [1] - so no they won't change there reader to accept Kindle books. In fact Mobipocket has stopped producing new reader software all together.
It is not difficult see the evil masterplan behind: The typical Embrace, Extend, Extinguish plan which is now in the last phase: Mobipocket to be extinguished by not creating new software for todays devices. Amazon even got as far as stopping the finished Mobipocktet iPhone reader. And last not least: not licensing the Mobipocket file format to Sony.
For those who own Mobipocket books - ahh sorry mate you loose. Only by now Amazon has pissed of European customers [2] big time. After all we can't buy Kindle and feel the Mobipocket demise double. And we found out about Sony.
(they're being good open source citizens and releasing mods they've made to open source code -- good for them!)
It's not really about citizenship. It's about not being sued. In organizations I've worked in, engineers have so much to do that tasks they consider low-priority (like reviewing product documentation, and releasing modifications to open source products) tend to fall through the cracks. As a tech writer, it's part of my job to be an asshole about getting developers to review what I write. Same goes for our lawyers: they have to be assholes about getting developers to comply with legal stuff, including the op
there's more than one "Kindle-the-book-format", though. There's the regular Kindle file, azw, and there's one they call the "Topaz" format (azw1), and it sucks. I love Vernor Vinge, and unfortunately, lots of his stuff is in topaz format on the Kindle.
Huge numbers of artifacts - lines printed over other lines, skipped lines, and sometimes the first word of a sentence has huge amounts of whitespace between the first and second letter.
and I don't think it's the publisher's fault, either, because every topaz book on my Kindle has similar issues. Some have more issues than others, but they all have problems.
I have one book in Topaz (not a statistically significant sample, but it's all I have), and it renders fine.
Of course, you have to remember that the purpose of Topaz is to embed your own fonts. Most author/publishers will use this feature because they "don't like" the default font. My Topaz book has used the embedded fonts to display foreign characters (Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Linear B, the whole lot of em) inline, without having to resort to using images. It all dis
You email/call customer service within 7 days of purchase. They don't even ask for a reason, although if you provide one they will attempt to address it. For example, when they process a return based on formatting errors, they will include in the refund notification that they have informed the publisher of the problem (it's the publishers problem to fix, not Amazon's.)
When I tried to get a refund for a 7 month old book based on TTS disabling, I got a) a refusal because it had been quite a bit longer than 7
trollmod for devils advocate against amazon, but what the hey..
'good job' is a qualifier to which i object.
this is the same company violently trying to patent 1click...they released the source code because the community has an established habit of targeting offenders and demanding compliance and cash.
If you comply with a common good out of fear of the repercussions of not doing so, is that objectively different than if you comply with a common good out of love of the community? And how does an outside observer accurately know the difference?
Assuming you know someone's motivations is usually a mistake, and certainly arrogant and prejudiced.
Amazon did the right thing. "Why" is ultimately irrelevant.
"If I'm buying a Kindle from Amazon that enables me to buy books from Amazon, I'm broadcasting a desire to buy Kindle books. I would welcome some subsidization of the hardware since I'm going to be buying content anyway. No, I really think Amazon priced the Kindle the way they did because they thought they could get away with doing so..."
Why is it only in the tech-gadget industry that people expect manufacturers to sell items for *less than cost*?
Yeah, I don't get it either. Especially since in this case they really can't expect people to buy books from Amazon: my girlfriend has had one for over a month, has been using it quite a lot, and hasn't paid for any content yet. Instead, she's been getting stuff from Project Gutenberg, publishers which offer some things free, etc.
Of course, they are still subsidizing the cost of the wireless connection.
Why is it only in the tech-gadget industry that people expect manufacturers to sell items for *less than cost*?
I know! People would think you were crazy if you suggested selling a razor at below cost to encourage people to buy them and let you make money from the blades.
Funny you mention that, since razors are the one toiletry that's advertized exactly like tech gadgets: "6 blades is SO last year! Now get the MACH 12 WITH 12 BLADES!":)
I know! People would think you were crazy if you suggested selling a razor at below cost to encourage people to buy them and let you make money from the blades.
The difference that makes Kindle distinguishable from your example is that Amazon doesn't manufacture the blades. They are reselling other author's works and need to pay those authors a fair price. This is a significantly different business model from Gillette.
Exactly. And by selling at cost, if you find some use for it that maybe wasn't intended, nobody can lay a guilt trip on you about costing Amazon money because they subsidize its cost.
I've worked in businesses were equipment was basically sold at cost and where equipment was subsidized. At cost works much better, in my opinion. Subsidizing sucks when someone pays 20.00 for a 200.00 device, drops it in a bucket of water, and then explodes when they are expected to pay 200.00 for something they just paid 20.00
98% of books and 99.9% of magazines I never re-read. I'd prefer a library model, say $1 a day to read a book, then I could stop access and paying for it. The main exception would be course-texts.
...I'd prefer a library model, say $1 a day to read a book
i don't know what kind of library you've been going to, but my library is free to use. as for e-books: bittorrent seems to be closer to the library model, i go in, take as much as I want, and pay nothing. (you could argue that i pay for library access through taxes, but then i would just argue that i pay for pirate bay access through my internet subscription)
98% of books and 99.9% of magazines I never re-read. I'd prefer a library model, say $1 a day to read a book, then I could stop access and paying for it. The main exception would be course-texts.
I love libraries! You should check out TPB, I've heard they have a great selection of books and magazines you can borrow. Just like an analog library, but from your home computer or mobile device!;)
I have a hard time with the buzz on Amazon's device.
Right now, their stock is trading at an astronomical P/E ratio. Their balance sheet has an equally astronomical Goodwill valuation. Does someone follow the corporation's reporting enough to publish some facts regarding how much this device contributes to their bottom line?
If this were a big win for Amazon, it would show up in their numbers.
Now, how many of you *actually* stuff another device in your laptop bag to read books?
Or, maybe it will be like the days when Apple introduced the ipod and many on/. said it was doomed, only with Amazon the expectations are backwards.
I've owned the original Kindle for over a year now and as a business traveler it's amazing. Instead of stuffing a couple paperbacks in my carry on, I take my kindle. If I'm out of books to read, I browse the amazon store from the terminal, which is substantially cheaper than say Hudson News.
When I travel internationally to non-english speaking countries, meaning no english tv channels, I usually load up half a dozen books in advance to keep me occupied. Since the wireless obviously only works in the stat
With the New York Times to $2/ea (newsstand price, what I pay/buy), as soon as this drops in price by $50-100 it becomes cheaper than buying it at the newsstand. $100 pricebreak or faster refresh (next gen e-ink tech) is what will make me buy one. If the NYT would give a $100 rebate for a 1 year subscription I would buy one tomorrow. There's a lot of people waiting for the price to come down 10-20% and I think you'll see a bunch of people ordering them that would otherwise never have been in the market for
The price of any product is determined by what the market will bear. Therefore saying that Amazon priced the Kindle as high as they could get away with is simply circular, a tautology. A product is priced to move a certain number of units. Amazon decided that the price would move enough units, that may change in the same way that Apple lowered the price to move more units.
OTOH, the Kindle may be subsidized because of the user does not pay for the wireless plan, Amazon does. Since we do not know the de
Another factor to consider when trying to ferret out the "true price" is the pricing of similar products. The most expensive component is the screen, so limit your search to other eInk products:
Sony Reader $270-350
Amazon Kindle $360-500
iRex iLiad $600-850
The thing that stops me taking the Kindle is the huge upfront cost. I can buy 200 books for the price of one Kindle. Obviously, the Kindle has all sorts of advantages over regular books, but it's quite a steep cost.
I think Amazon should subsidise the books. Make the Kindle come with, say, $200 worth of vouchers redeemable in the Amazon store. Make it $100 worth of general vouchers and $100 worth of 2-for-1 deals. Anything to cut the apparent cost of the hardware.
Digital content has no intrinsic cost, so it's not much of a subsidy on their behalf.
Digital content has no intrinsic cost, so it's not much of a subsidy on their behalf.
While I'm a huge fan of free stuff, I would like to point out that they still have to pay the authors and publishers for use of the copyrighted material.
They do subsidize the books (if by subsidize you mean "sell for less than hardcopy"). I just bought Outliers for Kindle for $9.99; hardcopy is $14.83 from Amazon, or $18.19 from B&N.
That's not a subsidy. They can't sell digital copies for the same amount as hard copies because their customers know that it costs them significantly less money to produce. They're still selling both the hardware and content at a profit. A subsidy is when you use profits from one product to offset selling another product for a loss (eg Sony sells the PS3 at a loss but makes it up by charging a $10 royalty on every PS3 game made, even if they had no hand in the development/production/distribution of the game).
What do you think a subsidized e-book would go for? -$5.00 perhaps?:-)
I'm partly serious. There are still production (scanning, proofing, formatting) and distribution (whispernet) costs even though they're smaller than with hardcopy, and royalties which are unchanged.
Well, your statement is a little off. Sony has had a hand in every title made for the PS3, they made the dev tools and hardware. That $10 royalty if for establishing the platform, etc. Mod me down if you find me pedantic.
In a semi-related note The new Ghostbusters game is $59.99 PS3/360 and $29.99 PC
That is just not true. Amazon guarantees that the Kindle price will always be less than the dead tree edition. I've never seen the kindle edition of a book which has begun selling trade paperbacks be $9.99. Occasionally the price at Borders or Barnes & Noble will be cheaper because they have the hardcover on sale for 40% off, and the Kindle price is only 30% off the listed hardcover price, though if you can wait a week or two for new releases the price goes down from the price on the release date.
Digital content has no intrinsic cost, so it's not much of a subsidy on their behalf.
Digital content has no intrinsic cost to the publisher. To Amazon, who has to pay the publisher a royalty fee for every sale, digital content has a very real, per unit cost that they cannot go below. Just like the television and film industries learned very little about digital content from the music industry, so it would seem that the publishing industry has also chosen to ignore the lessons learned by those who have gone before them. The transition to digital print is going to be every bit as painful a
I have a Kindle. I love it. But I'm not buying books from the Kindle store for my Kindle, because they're DRM-encrusted. I'm buying my ebooks from another legitimate source which sells them to me in formats I can convert, and I convert them into Mobi and put them on my Kindle using Calibre.
So, buying a Kindle does not automatically signal a desire to buy Kindle books. Some of us just like the hardware.
Why did you pay the $150 "amazon tax" for a reader you're not using with the bundled store? The Sony ereader has the same screen for less and less format conversion hoops to jump through. If both are displaying non-DRM text on the same screen it's essentially a commodity item to you unless the kindle is providing some additional service that the Sony does not provide.
Slashdot (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems unreasonable to me for someone to ask a company to sell their wares at less than it costs to produce it. Amazon could make that choice if there was reasonable competition and they wanted to take the hit to compete (assuming they couldnt be competitive at production cost) but suggesting that amazon take a loss when clearly the market is willing to support production price
End of print periodical? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:End of print periodical? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you haven't noticed, but a large portion of the print periodical industry is being unseated without the kindle's help.
What I'd like to see is an e-book reader that fetches my news and favorite comics from tha intarwebs. The first company to come out with it will be rich, guaranteed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:End of print periodical? (Score:4, Informative)
Found it! http://kindlefeeder.com/ [kindlefeeder.com]
Amazon didn't shut them down, someone just noted that it could be construed as against the TOS, but efforts at contacting Amazon for legal clarification have not been returned.
Parent
Re:End of print periodical? (Score:4, Insightful)
Since I purchased my Kindle 2 I have purchased more individual newspapers than I have in the last 5 years. I like the ability to pick up the Wall Street Journal one day and Boston Globe the next. Also during my commute if I see an article in a paper while reading over their shoulder I immediate go to Amazon and buy that days print.
I think Peter Smith has it wrong and Jeff got it right. I purchased the Kindle at this price point because I was not tied down to any contract. I read a lot of books and with the Kindle I now have them all queued up. Not all of the books were purchased from Amazon. The Pragmatic Programmers is a publisher that gets it and other publishers should take note. I went to there site to see if they were going to off ebooks for the Kindle. Little did I know they already do. I logged into my account and that is when I got an alert telling me that the two ebooks I purchased a year ago have updates. Hmmm... Would be cool if I could trade these in for the Kindle version. BLAM A click of the link and the PDF and Kindle versions were ready for me to download. No extra cost. Now if only Manning and a few other publishers would get this.
Parent
they are supporting ebooks on non-Kindles (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I read this as Bezos saying that they'll support Amazon Kindle ebooks on other "mobile" platforms (a la various smartphones, etc), but that they won't support them on anything that is a direct competitor (a la E Ink-based reader devices) to the Kindle. This view is totally consistent with the words he said.
I agree with your interpreation. In Bezos' opinion, the iPhone does not compete with the Kindle, it complements it. In my usage, I've found this to be true. I do MOST of my reading on the Kindle, but I do get in a page or two of a book on the iPhone while in the bathroom. It's entirely possible for the iPhone to offer some competition, but I don't think it's a big concern for them- iPhone only customers are still buying their books, after all.
There's no way a Sony Reader would complement a Kindle in a si
Mobipocket and DRM (Score:4, Informative)
First: the DRM has been broken - AZW is the Mobipocket file-format with just one byte changed so a Mobipocket reader software won't accept it. So to break Amazons DRM google for "MobiDeDRM" and "Kindle Mobipocket conversion" - it will be the #1 hit ;-).
Now having said that you might notice something: Mobipocket has free to download readers for just about 12 different devices. So if Amazon wanted what you suggest all they had to to is not change that one byte. So in changing that one byte it is a clear signal that that they want there books to be read on Kindle and Kindle alone. And iPhone is just a special exception.
Before you wonder: Amazon owns Mobipocket [1] - so no they won't change there reader to accept Kindle books. In fact Mobipocket has stopped producing new reader software all together.
It is not difficult see the evil masterplan behind: The typical Embrace, Extend, Extinguish plan which is now in the last phase: Mobipocket to be extinguished by not creating new software for todays devices. Amazon even got as far as stopping the finished Mobipocktet iPhone reader. And last not least: not licensing the Mobipocket file format to Sony.
For those who own Mobipocket books - ahh sorry mate you loose. Only by now Amazon has pissed of European customers [2] big time. After all we can't buy Kindle and feel the Mobipocket demise double. And we found out about Sony.
Martin
[1] http://www.mobipocket.com/ [mobipocket.com]
[2] http://www.mobipocket.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15520 [mobipocket.com]
Parent
Done already! (Score:2)
As I said one post above: Done already.
Citizens and Lawyers (Score:2)
(they're being good open source citizens and releasing mods they've made to open source code -- good for them!)
It's not really about citizenship. It's about not being sued. In organizations I've worked in, engineers have so much to do that tasks they consider low-priority (like reviewing product documentation, and releasing modifications to open source products) tend to fall through the cracks. As a tech writer, it's part of my job to be an asshole about getting developers to review what I write. Same goes for our lawyers: they have to be assholes about getting developers to comply with legal stuff, including the op
Kindle 1 owner (Score:4, Interesting)
there's more than one "Kindle-the-book-format", though. There's the regular Kindle file, azw, and there's one they call the "Topaz" format (azw1), and it sucks. I love Vernor Vinge, and unfortunately, lots of his stuff is in topaz format on the Kindle.
Huge numbers of artifacts - lines printed over other lines, skipped lines, and sometimes the first word of a sentence has huge amounts of whitespace between the first and second letter.
Other than that, love my Kindle.
Re: (Score:2)
and I don't think it's the publisher's fault, either, because every topaz book on my Kindle has similar issues. Some have more issues than others, but they all have problems.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
This isn't true, at least not 100%.
I have one book in Topaz (not a statistically significant sample, but it's all I have), and it renders fine.
Of course, you have to remember that the purpose of Topaz is to embed your own fonts. Most author/publishers will use this feature because they "don't like" the default font. My Topaz book has used the embedded fonts to display foreign characters (Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, Linear B, the whole lot of em) inline, without having to resort to using images. It all dis
Re: (Score:2)
So how does on go about getting a refund for a defective ebook??
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You email/call customer service within 7 days of purchase. They don't even ask for a reason, although if you provide one they will attempt to address it. For example, when they process a return based on formatting errors, they will include in the refund notification that they have informed the publisher of the problem (it's the publishers problem to fix, not Amazon's.)
When I tried to get a refund for a 7 month old book based on TTS disabling, I got a) a refusal because it had been quite a bit longer than 7
let we forget (Score:2)
'good job' is a qualifier to which i object.
this is the same company violently trying to patent 1click...they released the source code because the community has an established habit of targeting offenders and demanding compliance and cash.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you comply with a common good out of fear of the repercussions of not doing so, is that objectively different than if you comply with a common good out of love of the community? And how does an outside observer accurately know the difference?
Assuming you know someone's motivations is usually a mistake, and certainly arrogant and prejudiced.
Amazon did the right thing. "Why" is ultimately irrelevant.
Subsidized hardware (Score:3, Insightful)
"If I'm buying a Kindle from Amazon that enables me to buy books from Amazon, I'm broadcasting a desire to buy Kindle books. I would welcome some subsidization of the hardware since I'm going to be buying content anyway. No, I really think Amazon priced the Kindle the way they did because they thought they could get away with doing so..."
Why is it only in the tech-gadget industry that people expect manufacturers to sell items for *less than cost*?
Re: (Score:2)
Because we are mostly tech oriented people and we associate with mostly tech oriented people that want to pay nothing for their hobbies.
If this were a plumbing forum, we'd all be bitching about Delta faucets and what is actually a fair price.
FYI, I've just had my second delta faucet in 2 months break because of an extremely under-engineered screw.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Subsidized hardware (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it only in the tech-gadget industry that people expect manufacturers to sell items for *less than cost*?
I know! People would think you were crazy if you suggested selling a razor at below cost to encourage people to buy them and let you make money from the blades.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Funny you mention that, since razors are the one toiletry that's advertized exactly like tech gadgets: "6 blades is SO last year! Now get the MACH 12 WITH 12 BLADES!" :)
Re:Subsidized hardware THE DIFFERENCE (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference that makes Kindle distinguishable from your example is that Amazon doesn't manufacture the blades. They are reselling other author's works and need to pay those authors a fair price. This is a significantly different business model from Gillette.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. And by selling at cost, if you find some use for it that maybe wasn't intended, nobody can lay a guilt trip on you about costing Amazon money because they subsidize its cost.
I've worked in businesses were equipment was basically sold at cost and where equipment was subsidized. At cost works much better, in my opinion. Subsidizing sucks when someone pays 20.00 for a 200.00 device, drops it in a bucket of water, and then explodes when they are expected to pay 200.00 for something they just paid 20.00
I'd prefer to rent an ebook than own it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
...I'd prefer a library model, say $1 a day to read a book
i don't know what kind of library you've been going to, but my library is free to use.
as for e-books: bittorrent seems to be closer to the library model, i go in, take as much as I want, and pay nothing.
(you could argue that i pay for library access through taxes, but then i would just argue that i pay for pirate bay access through my internet subscription)
Re:I'd prefer to rent an ebook than own it (Score:4, Funny)
98% of books and 99.9% of magazines I never re-read. I'd prefer a library model, say $1 a day to read a book, then I could stop access and paying for it. The main exception would be course-texts.
I love libraries! You should check out TPB, I've heard they have a great selection of books and magazines you can borrow. Just like an analog library, but from your home computer or mobile device! ;)
Parent
Amazon's Pump-n-Dump? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a hard time with the buzz on Amazon's device.
Right now, their stock is trading at an astronomical P/E ratio.
Their balance sheet has an equally astronomical Goodwill valuation.
Does someone follow the corporation's reporting enough to publish some facts regarding how much this device contributes to their bottom line?
If this were a big win for Amazon, it would show up in their numbers.
Now, how many of you *actually* stuff another device in your laptop bag to read books?
Or, maybe it will be like the days when Apple introduced the ipod and many on /. said it was doomed, only with Amazon the expectations are backwards.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've owned the original Kindle for over a year now and as a business traveler it's amazing. Instead of stuffing a couple paperbacks in my carry on, I take my kindle. If I'm out of books to read, I browse the amazon store from the terminal, which is substantially cheaper than say Hudson News.
When I travel internationally to non-english speaking countries, meaning no english tv channels, I usually load up half a dozen books in advance to keep me occupied. Since the wireless obviously only works in the stat
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
With the New York Times to $2/ea (newsstand price, what I pay/buy), as soon as this drops in price by $50-100 it becomes cheaper than buying it at the newsstand. $100 pricebreak or faster refresh (next gen e-ink tech) is what will make me buy one. If the NYT would give a $100 rebate for a 1 year subscription I would buy one tomorrow. There's a lot of people waiting for the price to come down 10-20% and I think you'll see a bunch of people ordering them that would otherwise never have been in the market for
kindle price (Score:2)
OTOH, the Kindle may be subsidized because of the user does not pay for the wireless plan, Amazon does. Since we do not know the de
Re: (Score:2)
Another factor to consider when trying to ferret out the "true price" is the pricing of similar products. The most expensive component is the screen, so limit your search to other eInk products:
Sony Reader $270-350
Amazon Kindle $360-500
iRex iLiad $600-850
That's quite a distribution.
Re: (Score:2)
The Sony Reader models are all touchscreen and they cost less than the Kindle or iLiad.
The Kindle DX has a 9.7" screen, and costs less than the 8.1" (cheapest) iLiad.
I see where this is going... (Score:2)
Bezos said 'that he sees Kindle-the-device and Kindle-the-book-format as two separate business models
What's next? Kindle the Lunchbox? Kindle the Flamethrower?
As TFA states, it sounds like Amazon is charging full price for the hardware just because they can. Welcome to the Quest For More Money!
Don't subsidise the hardware - subsidise the books (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing that stops me taking the Kindle is the huge upfront cost. I can buy 200 books for the price of one Kindle. Obviously, the Kindle has all sorts of advantages over regular books, but it's quite a steep cost.
I think Amazon should subsidise the books. Make the Kindle come with, say, $200 worth of vouchers redeemable in the Amazon store. Make it $100 worth of general vouchers and $100 worth of 2-for-1 deals. Anything to cut the apparent cost of the hardware.
Digital content has no intrinsic cost, so it's not much of a subsidy on their behalf.
Re:Don't subsidise the hardware - subsidise the bo (Score:4, Informative)
Digital content has no intrinsic cost, so it's not much of a subsidy on their behalf.
While I'm a huge fan of free stuff, I would like to point out that they still have to pay the authors and publishers for use of the copyrighted material.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They do subsidize the books (if by subsidize you mean "sell for less than hardcopy"). I just bought Outliers for Kindle for $9.99; hardcopy is $14.83 from Amazon, or $18.19 from B&N.
Re:Don't subsidise the hardware - subsidise the bo (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not a subsidy. They can't sell digital copies for the same amount as hard copies because their customers know that it costs them significantly less money to produce. They're still selling both the hardware and content at a profit. A subsidy is when you use profits from one product to offset selling another product for a loss (eg Sony sells the PS3 at a loss but makes it up by charging a $10 royalty on every PS3 game made, even if they had no hand in the development/production/distribution of the game).
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
What do you think a subsidized e-book would go for? -$5.00 perhaps? :-)
I'm partly serious. There are still production (scanning, proofing, formatting) and distribution (whispernet) costs even though they're smaller than with hardcopy, and royalties which are unchanged.
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Well, your statement is a little off. Sony has had a hand in every title made for the PS3, they made the dev tools and hardware. That $10 royalty if for establishing the platform, etc. Mod me down if you find me pedantic.
In a semi-related note The new Ghostbusters game is $59.99 PS3/360 and $29.99 PC
W.............T..............F
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you notice, though, newer books with paperback editions, typically the Kindle version is $9.99 and the paperback less.
You have to get to much older books for Kindle prices to be lower than paperback prices, and even with old sci-fi novels, its typically 5% less.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That is just not true. Amazon guarantees that the Kindle price will always be less than the dead tree edition. I've never seen the kindle edition of a book which has begun selling trade paperbacks be $9.99. Occasionally the price at Borders or Barnes & Noble will be cheaper because they have the hardcover on sale for 40% off, and the Kindle price is only 30% off the listed hardcover price, though if you can wait a week or two for new releases the price goes down from the price on the release date.
Re:Don't subsidise the hardware - subsidise the bo (Score:3, Interesting)
Digital content has no intrinsic cost, so it's not much of a subsidy on their behalf.
Digital content has no intrinsic cost to the publisher. To Amazon, who has to pay the publisher a royalty fee for every sale, digital content has a very real, per unit cost that they cannot go below. Just like the television and film industries learned very little about digital content from the music industry, so it would seem that the publishing industry has also chosen to ignore the lessons learned by those who have gone before them. The transition to digital print is going to be every bit as painful a
Not buying Kindle books for my Kindle... (Score:5, Informative)
I have a Kindle. I love it. But I'm not buying books from the Kindle store for my Kindle, because they're DRM-encrusted. I'm buying my ebooks from another legitimate source which sells them to me in formats I can convert, and I convert them into Mobi and put them on my Kindle using Calibre.
So, buying a Kindle does not automatically signal a desire to buy Kindle books. Some of us just like the hardware.
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Why did you pay the $150 "amazon tax" for a reader you're not using with the bundled store? The Sony ereader has the same screen for less and less format conversion hoops to jump through. If both are displaying non-DRM text on the same screen it's essentially a commodity item to you unless the kindle is providing some additional service that the Sony does not provide.
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I'm sure he's using the whispernet -- I've heard it's pretty nice.