MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - The true cost of publishing on the Amazon Kindle

karunaji · 02-16-2011, 03:29 PM

It appears that wireless delivery of newspapers and magazines could cost more than mailing paper versions: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/02...amazon-kindle/

It makes no sense but I think that it really underlines how the closed device/app market is only beneficial to corporations at the expense of consumers and authors. Look, we all love free access to the the internet on Kindle but there is no free lunch. When real costs are very well hidden companies can charge obscene prices for wireless data. 10p per 1 MB is is robbery.

The real cost of 3G wireless data is very low. When I was in London I bought a prepaid SIM card that allowed me to use unlimited data for 27p per day. In Latvia there are similar plans with minimum of 100 MB/month for $2.

I don't know why Amazon is unable to negotiate better rates but closed device is one reason for this. If Kindle was sold with an option to use a personal SIM card, there would be real competition between cell phone networks to provide better plans and with better data access Kindle could have more functionality.

02-16-2011, 03:29 PM	#1
karunaji Evangelist Posts: 421 Karma: 1033566 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Latvia Device: Kindle 3 Wifi, Bookeen Opus	The true cost of publishing on the Amazon Kindle It appears that wireless delivery of newspapers and magazines could cost more than mailing paper versions: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/02...amazon-kindle/ It makes no sense but I think that it really underlines how the closed device/app market is only beneficial to corporations at the expense of consumers and authors. Look, we all love free access to the the internet on Kindle but there is no free lunch. When real costs are very well hidden companies can charge obscene prices for wireless data. 10p per 1 MB is is robbery. The real cost of 3G wireless data is very low. When I was in London I bought a prepaid SIM card that allowed me to use unlimited data for 27p per day. In Latvia there are similar plans with minimum of 100 MB/month for $2. I don't know why Amazon is unable to negotiate better rates but closed device is one reason for this. If Kindle was sold with an option to use a personal SIM card, there would be real competition between cell phone networks to provide better plans and with better data access Kindle could have more functionality.