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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian
That is a fallacy. the price point certainly helps, but the important thing is quick and easy, simple, reliable access to Amazon's books.
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Which most Latvians or Russians can't read because there are very few books in Latvian or Russian on Amazon
I have bought e-books from Kobo and a local Latvian bookstore. Maybe it is just me but in all cases the procedure was quite straightforward. You just buy a book on your computer and then connect the Kobo reader to the computer and transfer it. For free and non-DRM content you just use Calibre and transfer it to the device.
In fact, using Kindle was more confusing because some books get moved to Archived folder and then I can't access them when away from Wi-Fi hotspot. There is no added value in being able to buy books directly from Kindle because I use Wi-Fi only at home next to my computer anyway. It definitely is not worth $2 per book as buyers in many countries are charged.
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I don't see that happening; if e-ink becomes cheaper Amazon will be able to offer cheaper Kindles (they can split R&D costs among a few millions units sold, too). They're in the content business, though, Kindles are just a means to an end.
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If a price becomes affordable to an average user, let's say $50 per device, then lower price that Amazon could offer becomes less important, especially if this device does not allow easy loading of e-books from local bookstores.
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Originally Posted by rogue_librarian
Not exactly an insurmountable issue in this day & age of ubiquitous Unicode.
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Fonts are there but for commercial product you need more than that. For example, search function in Kindle is meaningless if it doesn't support Russian keyboard. Alphabetic ordering is another issue. Localized version with all menu options translated into local language is preferable.