Amazon Hobbles Features For International Kindle

Barence writes "Amazon has stripped several key features out of the international edition of the Kindle, PC Pro has discovered. Newspapers and magazines are delivered without any photos, and the web browser has been disabled, presumably because Amazon doesn't want to foot the data bill. There's also a 40% premium on books bought via the Amazon store. 'International customers do pay a higher price for their books than US customers due to higher operating costs outside of the US,' an Amazon spokesperson confessed."

Re:Higher Costs outside the USA?

[h4rr4r]

The Zune is a huge flop inside the U.S. as well.

Amazon Offers Refund!

[starrsoft]

Amazon sent out an email [hansmast.com] this morning to people who bought an International Kindle (mine arrived yesterday) informing them that they had dropped the price by $20 and would be applying a $20 refund to my credit card. With this kind of customer service, I buy even my groceries from Amazon these days; no need to venture outside. I suspect that this is also fighting back against the Nook [barnesandnoble.com].

Re:Another troll summary?

[eldavojohn]

OK what costs? Scanning/turning into an e-book?

I think distributions rights get really complicated across regions and countries. If someone owns the rights to digital distributions or all distributions of a work, Amazon's probably got to pay them a premium for their market. Just look at DVDs, I can't even by "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence [wikipedia.org]" in the states. I would imagine selection would be vastly hobbled for several reasons across different countries. And let's not forget Germany's regulation of book prices [slashdot.org] "in an effort to protect authors, publishers, and small booksellers." There could be a lot of factors at work here--most of which are specific to a single country.

Re:Another troll summary?

[b0bby]

Tax? Well perhaps, although books tend not to be taxed in the UK - who knows how ebooks will be treated though.

TFA says that EU taxes on ebooks are higher than paper books; if it's like most other VAT that's 20% right there, your $10 book becomes $12.

Re:Another troll summary?

[harlows_monkeys]

Logically speaking, why would their operating costs be any higher? They aren't actually shipping books around--they're shipping data. And that data is probably hosted on the same servers, maybe even the same bits as their US products

The data is essentially delivered by cell phone. They are using AT&T's international roaming service for the international Kindle, and that costs a lot.

Re:That's alright.

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of the kindle is that it has wireless GSM access built in.... and sadly you can't change it to a local Euro carrier. There is no SIM card to swap. Nice try, though.

Re:Do not buy Kindle

[Colonel Korn]

Why figth against a stupid corp like Amazon, if you can simply use real books (no DRM here, you can give then to your friends, sell, etc) or use a better - and open - option like one netbook with PDF reader? For me, Kindle is a expensive and useless toy.

This comes up with every Kindle article, and I tend to respond. A netbook, or anything else with a backlight, can't compete with a Kindle's readability. Of course there are other ebook readers, and there are also paper books, but the Kindle really is quite useful if you travel and want to bring a lot to read. Also, if you want to only read free (as in beer or speech, your choice) material you can do so on the Kindle. The DX, at least, reads pdfs without any conversion, and both versions read txt and several non-Amazon ebook formats.

No ebook VAT in the UK

[ed]

books are not taxed, ebooks are treated as books

Re:Another troll summary?

[Red Flayer]

What?

The Euro is valued over 40% higher than the dollar. The reason you keep the number price the same (unit-less) is because then you make more money on the sales in countries with more valuable currency, because (and this is the key aspect) people are willing to pay that price. That is it.

This is why everything in Kuwait is so expensive and Italy had really low prices before they joined the euro.

Currency exchange rates are only one small factor in the price differences, in USD, between Italy (pre EU), Kuwait, and anywhere else. It's a complex valuation between currencies which includes factors like money supply in each of the countries, GDP, local wage rates, and a host of other factors.

yet their PAPER books are the same price

[petes_PoV]

On Amazon's websites: War and Peace, same edition, UK and US prices. Penguin Classics (paperback) in the US this is sold for $10.88 with free delivery. In the UK the price is £7.12 with free delivery. Using an exchange rate of $1.60 to the £, the prices are certainly not 40% different.

So why do I get the feeling I am being lied to?

Wow really?

[aceofspades1217]

Was amazon really too stupid to contact vodafone or orange and get a plan from them. I mean really why would they actually pay roaming charges with AT&T. Its not like they bought the kindles from AT&T and AT&T locked them :D

Re:Another troll summary?

[Eivind]

The EU isn't a country. Different nations have different taxes. Some require VAT to be paid on books, and others don't. (here in Norway, there's no VAT on books, nor any other tax)