Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Most people won't care what format the Kindle supports. They just click, download, and read. It's that simple. They won' care about DRM. They won't care about the things we here care about. It will just work. They will get expensive hard cover books on their Kindle for about $10. They will save a bunch of money that way and eventually the Kindle will pay for itself. They won't care that the Kindle is a closed system. It will work for them and work well. I think it will succeed. And what this may do is get the NYTimes to maybe have an ebook bestseller list. It is good for ebooks in general, but not good for the competition. NAEB is in deep shit now (IMHO). They don't have the Gen3 for sale yet and already they are in trouble. Sony may very well be in trouble. Basically, I think the Kindle will take over the ebook market and if Amazon releases it in other countries, it will win there too.
Amazon has made content trivial to get and read. They have made it inexpensive as well for the content. The game is over and Amazon has won.
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I don't know how optimistic I am about whether of not they'll succeed. I'm still waiting and watching, but you bring up an excellent point that I think we tend to forget. We think of the market as our community and I don't think that's the market Amazon is really interested in. Us geeky early-adopter gadget freaks who rant on our forums about OSS and DRM are relatively few to a company like Amazon. They want to be iPod and iTunes for your slightly older, wealthier business traveler. This is someone who is probably not very tech savvy and doesn't want to be.
I can't tell you how many times I've read this online: "ZOMG!!!!11 I just got a new computer and plugged my iPod into it and it wiped out all my songs!" That's part of iTunes DRM. Your average iPod consumer doesn't realize it (until they get hit by it). People just assume that they're getting a certain level of fair use when they buy. They're not really reading up on it before hand. People grumble a bit but you don't see mass defection from iPods. Most people I know won't have one because of these kinds of practices. Are we hurting Apple's bottom line? No. Will Amazon's target market be as bovine as Apple's? That remains to be seen.
What's troubling me at the moment is that if Amazon succeeds, this may mean a lot more ebook titles available for all of us (yay!) but it becomes another success for restrictive DRM. More companies will probably try it. If they fail, it sets the ebook business back a fair ways. Many will interpret it as a lack of interest.