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I don't think many of the authors opting in understand the significance of the non-compete clause. In fact, I'd argue that many authors are jumping into this without even realizing there *is* a non-compete clause. Let's look at it again - "or content that is reasonably likely to compete commercially with your Digital Book, diminish its value, or be confused with it".
It's not just that you're giving Amazon exclusive rights to your book. You're agreeing to not publish anything, anywhere based on Amazon's whim. They could very well decide that the 5 page free read you put up on your website will "diminish [the] value" of the book you have with them. Then they'll withhold your royalties because you'll be considered in breach of contract.
Only time will tell whether that will happen. I think it's a toss up between Amazon trying to grab as many rights as they can just in case, but not really intending to keep writers in a strangle hold, and them aggressively policing members who opt into the program. I'd like to think that somewhere down the road an author won't find that Amazon refuses to pay them their royalties because they put up a free read on their site, but frankly I wouldn't be surprised if that does happen.
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