The Free Kindle Meme Goes Mainstream

[Giggleton]

Let's all read some books!

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/mobile/...n.free.kindle/

[Kali Yuga]

Up next: Free iPods, Android phones, netbooks, desktop computers, flat screen TV's....

No free cars, though. Those inch up in price every year. Dang.

The Kindle does have a vendor lock-in, but without some type of multi-year service plan, with a penalty for early termination, giving away Kindles will turn into a money pit. I might add that a few years ago, Bezos did explicitly shoot down the idea that they were pursuing either the cell phone model (discount the device, profit on the service) or the iTunes model (discount on the service, profit on the device). Ideally they want to earn profits from both the hardware and ebook sales.

Plus, you need more than Bezos smiling at you to prove you've divined his business plans. He's a very savvy business man, but let's face it, the guy looks like a Muppet on crank.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Up next: Free iPods, Android phones, netbooks, desktop computers, flat screen TV's....

No free cars, though. Those inch up in price every year. Dang.

The Kindle does have a vendor lock-in, but without some type of multi-year service plan, with a penalty for early termination, giving away Kindles will turn into a money pit. I might add that a few years ago, Bezos did explicitly shoot down the idea that they were pursuing either the cell phone model (discount the device, profit on the service) or the iTunes model (discount on the service, profit on the device). Ideally they want to earn profits from both the hardware and ebook sales.

Plus, you need more than Bezos smiling at you to prove you've divined his business plans. He's a very savvy business man, but let's face it, the guy looks like a Muppet on crank.

vendor lock-in? as in the myth that you can only put Amazon books on the Kindle?

note: MYTH!

[Hellmark]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

vendor lock-in? as in the myth that you can only put Amazon books on the Kindle?

note: MYTH!

It is when you look at DRM'ed books, which does make up the majority of books sold.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

It is when you look at DRM'ed books, which does make up the majority of books sold.

that is disingenuous. there are plenty of places to obtain books for Kindles that have nothing to do with DRM. continuing to spout these inaccuracies is harmful to potential users. and just ridiculous no matter which way you try to justify it

[faithbw]

Originally Posted by Hellmark

It is when you look at DRM'ed books, which does make up the majority of books sold.

You can get non-DRM mobi books on an Amazon so it is a little misleading to say that only Amazon books can be put on the Kindle. Although I admit that the majority of eBooks sold are DRMed.

[Giggleton]

There's a calculus involved here. Because certainly not everyone will be using their Kindles to purchase books from Amazon, nor would Amazon expect everyone to.

And although completely free is nice, I would expect some kind of lock in, purchase a 50 dollar gift card get a Kindle. 25 would be allright too.

But basically,

Would the purchases of all those new Kindle owners offset the costs involved in giving the Kindle's away for "free"?

I mean, do you think Amazon has the balls to drop a few billion to give everybody and their brother a Kindle? At least everyone with a credit card and an Amazon account?

Let's just say Amazon needs to hand out 50 million Kindles to get this thing going. If they cost say 100 dollars to manufacture, that would be only 5 billion dollars.

Wikipedia says Bezos has 12.6 billion net worth.

How long would it take for Bezos to double his money back, from sales of books through his site? Assuming the standard 30% cut of all book sales.

I don't think we have to assume any difference in the rate of book sales, even though we obviously could for numerous reasons. Just a simple extrapolation of the current number, do you think there's 5 million Kindles in the wild? So multiple the current revenue per month by 10.

lol, just read this I guess, it does sound doable, major risk of course..

http://seekingalpha.com/article/2447...evenue-in-2015

[wodin]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

vendor lock-in? as in the myth that you can only put Amazon books on the Kindle?

note: MYTH!

And would you turn down a free Kindle that could ONLY read Amazon DRM books? It would be a simple matter of tweaking the firmware on the free version, then you could sell and unlocked one for ... say ... $139.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by wodin

And would you turn down a free Kindle that could ONLY read Amazon DRM books? It would be a simple matter of tweaking the firmware on the free version, then you could sell and unlocked one for ... say ... $139.

that's kind of a silly question as it is not an issue

[bgalbrecht]

It only makes sense for Amazon to offer a free Kindle to Amazon Prime customers who spent more than the cost of a Kindle in free delivery costs on their book purchases, assuming that the books had Kindle editions, and the customer is likely to switch from books to ebooks after receiving the Kindle.

[SensualPoet]

It does not make good business sense to give a discounted (or free) Kindle to any account that has low or no interest in reading on an e-ink device. There is a cost to purchase, ship, support every Kindle. There may be a model which works if th Kindle lands in the right hands which will then *purchase* Amazon Kindle books. If Amazon earns $3 per book as commission from the publisher, leaving out the cost of running the servers and book service itself, each "free" Kindle requires perhaps 50 books to be sold to recover the cost. It's essential the device lands in the right hands.

I believe the current model -- the device division has a mandate to make a profit and the ebook division has a mandate to make a profit -- will be the one Amazon continues to follow in 2011.

[aagstn]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

that is disingenuous. there are plenty of places to obtain books for Kindles that have nothing to do with DRM. continuing to spout these inaccuracies is harmful to potential users. and just ridiculous no matter which way you try to justify it

There are a few places, but most people are going to want books from major publishers and those do have DRM so Amazon is your only option. The fact the kindle does not support epub and Adobe's DRM like its major competitors is not a myth and its the reason I will never own a kindle.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

It does not make good business sense to give a discounted (or free) Kindle to any account that has low or no interest in reading on an e-ink device. There is a cost to purchase, ship, support every Kindle. There may be a model which works if the Kindle lands in the right hands which will then *purchase* Amazon Kindle books. If Amazon earns $3 per book as commission from the publisher, leaving out the cost of running the servers and book service itself, each "free" Kindle requires perhaps 50 books to be sold to recover the cost. It's essential the device lands in the right hands.

I believe the current model -- the device division has a mandate to make a profit and the ebook division has a mandate to make a profit -- will be the one Amazon continues to follow in 2011.

So let's just say that at the current cost of a Kindle, each Kindler (person with a Kindle) would have to purchase 75 books to to make the venture attractive. That's $750 dollars american, with 50 million Kindles, 37.5 billion dollars, where would all that money go?? lol, not to mention the fact that the average book budget for a year in the united states is nowhere close to 750 dollars.

But over 5 years? Do Kindles even last that long? 75 books would be 150 dollars a year. Still a bit much. Although some people do spend a lot more than that.

Perhaps high school english classes should be considered?

Eventually the Kindle is going to be disposable right? Maybe we should just wait till then.

[wodin]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

that's kind of a silly question as it is not an issue

No, but it could be. It's only a suggestion of one possible scenario. If Amazon gave away crippled Kindles that really did lock you into buying from them, would you complain? And if you wanted a more open version; well, that'll be $139 please.

[karunaji]

Originally Posted by wodin

No, but it could be. It's only a suggestion of one possible scenario. If Amazon gave away crippled Kindles that really did lock you into buying from them, would you complain? And if you wanted a more open version; well, that'll be $139 please.

Kindle is a Linux device and there are Adobe DRM epub readers for Linux, so it would not be impossible to install it on jailbreaked Kindle. Jailbreaking is declared legitimate by courts, right? In practice it is not done simply because removing DRM is too trivial to even bother going the fully legal path. Thanks to selfless software developers, my Kindle can read epub and some other formats.

Therefore the free Kindle is very unlikely unless this offer is connected with some other obligations in which case it is not free.