Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
I'd be curious to see their metrics on how much money they make from books purchased over WiFi and 3G.
They obviously kept WiFi in, and not a browser or 3G, for a reason.
Amazon, on the other hand, continues to subsidize 3G web access for three generations of ereaders. Are their number that different, or are they trying to hit different audiences?
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A little bit of speculation here, and like my old Thermodynamics teacher used to say: "nothing is free on this life, unless is coming from your mom"
In other words, the company needs to sell enough books via 3G, to support the "free" 3G access or existence. Amazon needs to pay the service anyway and the more ebooks that they sell, the better and higher profit.
Does not look like B&N was selling enough ebooks to keep the 3G service or maybe the selling traffic via 3G was not as expected. Or maybe the deal (with whoever the 3G provider is or was) was not as good as Amazon, who knows. But selling a Wifi only device certainly save a few millions, not just during the manufacturing process but with the on going support and fees (for B&N I mean)