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Catsittingstill beat me to it. Those are precisely the reasons I want an ebook reader and why I specifically chose the first Kindle two years ago.
I'm now upgrading for the first time to the Kindle 3. There have been plenty of other players joining the game in the last two years. I'm tech savvy enough to liberate my books from DRM and bulk convert them to a new format, so I do not have to stay in the Amazon ecosystem to keep the books I've already purchased. I have no motivation to jump ship because I still think Amazon offers the best overall book buying and reading experience. They have a wide selection, competitive prices, and customer-centered service. Plus the combination of the free samples and wireless is brilliant.
I prefer shopping from my computer but I don't buy the books at that time. I send a sample to my Kindle. When I'm ready to start a new book, I go through my samples and pick something. If I still like it after reading through the sample, I click on the link at the end which automatically buys the book. I'm reading on through the book in less than a minute and I don't have to be near a computer to do this. I used to buy a lot of books I didn't finish. That doesn't happen with the Kindle. I don't have to plan ahead as to what I read next. I don't need to have the next book already purchased in case I finish the one I have before I get home.
The closest competitor in features is the nook, but it just fell a bit short for me despite the fact that I favor ePub as a format. It has the sort of reading features I like such as dictionary look-up, search, etc., which many readers still manage to lack. It has samples and wireless delivery. However, the device itself is heavy and slow. I understand it has improved greatly since launch, but I still hear plenty of complaints about speed and a clunky UI. Barnes & Noble also doesn't quite have the selection and they can't touch Amazon's level of customer service.
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