[ghero]

Hmm I just had an another thought here:

Maybe in a near future, e-reader makers may team up with newspaper/magzine publishers, and offer "year-plan" boundles just like cell phone makers: For example, customer can get a free e-reader (or an advanced e-reader at very low price) for a full year (or two) of certain daily newspaper subscription (or 1-3 years of certain monthly/weekly megazine subscription). OFC, the content subscribed is to be viewed on the e-reader being boundled. That means the publisher has to offer a format to allow the content (or at least most of the content) to be conviniently readable on those e-readers. On those e-readers, there should be a "download subscribed content" feature to let user to download the content they subscribed via wifi or 3G. It would be nice if the content can be automatically downloaded during ereader recharging. The publisher will split the revenues on those subscriptions with e-reader makers to cover the expense of the ereaders. And if both e-reader maker and publisher does the marketing well, they all should expand their customer bases, since e-reader maker will get more customers from newspaper/megazine readers, and newspaper/megazine publisher will get more customers that likes e-reading.