Sorry, I still don't think the Kindle makes sense
In a report that surprises me a bit, Time Magazine is reporting that the Amazon Kindle has been a relative success so far and represents a fairly sizable portion of all book sales.
“On a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12 percent of sales for those titles...At a technology trade conference in May, CEO Jeff Bezos said that Kindle sales accounted for 6 percent of book titles sold for the Kindle and in print. So Amazon appears to be selling more e-books,” the publication reported.
After reading through the report, I can’t help but wonder why Amazon is enjoying such success with the Kindle. Ostensibly, people are finding reason to buy a $360 device that allows you to read books, newspapers, and Wikipedia entries, but is it really necessary to pay that much for a device that lets you do exactly what your eyes do anyway?
I don’t get it.
Some people like to say that e-books are great because you can carry an entire library of books with you wherever you go, but that argument is ridiculous. Not only can you read just one book at a time, but how many people really need to carry thousands of books with them at all times?
Now, I’m not saying that e-books like the Kindle don’t offer any value, but I don’t see how anyone can justify spending that much money on a product that does so little.
Think of it this way: instead of buying the Kindle, you can head down to your local Barnes & Noble or surf over to Amazon.com and buy about 18 books for the price of the Kindle itself. And considering new releases will set you back another $10 per book, those same 18 books will add an additional $180 to the cost of entry. So when it’s all said and done, you’ll be paying $540 for the same result.
If you’re really into saving money, consider the fact that you can head down to your local library and loan all 18 of those books for the low, low cost of nothing.
That really puts the Kindle into perspective, doesn’t it?
The way I see it, the Kindle will provide the greatest benefit to college students who need to lug expensive textbooks around campus all year. But so far, the number of textbooks on the Kindle is practically zero and there’s no indication that textbook companies are willing to jump on the e-book bandwagon anytime soon.
At $360, the Amazon Kindle strikes me as a serious waste of money. If Amazon really wants to create a compelling product and reach critical mass, it needs to subsidize the cost of the Kindle and make it up on the books.
Then again, if it’s already coaxing suckers into buying this thing, maybe it doesn’t have to do anything.
Call me when the Kindle is free and I only need to buy the books. At that point, I’ll know e-books have arrived and the print business is in trouble. Until then, it’s nothing more than a niche product with a suspect future.
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I can think of a real good
I can think of a real good reason to have an entire library in one device: reference. I'm a programmer. I have tons of very unwieldy manuals that would be much more useful in one device with electronic search capabilities. I honestly don't know how many, if any, programming texts are available for the Kindle. But programming isn't the only field that requires tons of manuals. I easily have over 10000 pages of such material. Kindle's potential to be the ultimate reference library makes it worth the cost to me if a large quantity of the books I use all the time become available for it. If O'reilly media converts all of its books to kindle format I'd pay twice what it costs now to get one. Add the ability to download code corrections for each book and current issues of programming magazines and I'd be in heaven.King Gillette would be
King Gillette would be astounded. $359 for the razor and $10 each for the blades. Kindle holds 200 titles? That's $359 plus 2 Grand! Best deal since 10,000 songs on an iPod @ $.99.Kudos to Bezos & co. if this becomes a great success.
I bought a Rocket eBook reader almost 10 years ago, thinking to support Field Sales Managers with sales and tech data. NYT bestsellers and lots of Public Domain were available - not so easy getting updated company info into it.
I still have it though (somewhere), love the idea but not the results. Kindle is a better, smaller, smarter, more able successor, but I think I'll be a late adopter, this time.
No, you obviously don't get
No, you obviously don't get it. I have owned my Kindle for about 2 weeks. I love it because it's technology. I love it because it's easy. I love it expressly because I don't have to make trips to the library. I don't care about $360.My Kindle currently has 3 new books loaded on it. Edward Sawtelle, In Defense of Food and David Sedaris' latest work. I've got Malcom Gladwell's two books in audio format, which I listen to during my daily commute. I have the Tree Hugger blog, which I review at least twice daily and I uploaded my daily scripture text & weekly Bible reading. It also has hundreds of pages of requirements documents I need to review for work, my annotations and links to my Email and other web sites of importance to me. It as my dictionary, my clock and my companion when I'm bored.
If you don't own one, you have no right to critique it. If you owned one, you wouldn't have been so harsh. Look, if you're a cheapskate and don't want to spend the money, then fine. But don't bitch about a product you neither own nor want. In my opinion, you're not qualified.