Quote:
Originally Posted by Yapyap
Which doesn't really fill my heart with joy, considering I have a Wi-Fi only Kindle.
Anyway - (if this is true) - I do realise that it's a lot easier for Amazon to make every single customer in a certain country pay for the 3G of everyone, rather than differentiate between customers with 3G Kindles and everyone else.
I don't know about Canada, but I'm pretty sure that Amazon has never come out and stated, clearly and explicitly (in the other countries), that this is what the surcharge in all those countries where they add it is meant to cover. I've asked their customer service; the response I got was "unfortunately we do not offer any international surcharges" (yes, "bzuh?" was my reaction to that). And they do have "price includes free international delivery" under every single title.
I'd feel a lot less irritated by the surcharge if Amazon was open about it. :-/
(Actually, I'd feel a lot less irritated if Amazon stopped going on about "free international 3G", if it's actually that much of an issue for them, and charged the people with 3G Kindles extra for downloads over 3G. Not only does it appear that I have to pay for the convenience of other people, but I'm also charged extra VAT on that - 15% VAT on, say, $9.99 is, well, less than 15% VAT on $11.99, and it adds up when you buy a lot of books. But a clear, open, honest statement on why they charge it would go a long way.)
... On the other hand, Amazon stopped adding the $2 to free books last October or November. Which, well, I'm not complaining, but it makes one wonder why they don't want customers to pay for the 3G costs of downloading those.
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OT, but you may find it interesting that with the 3g keyboard, I can get to the web and browse, yet with the 3g touch, Amazon no longer wants to provide free 3g to the entire web. I think they offered it in the earlier models because they had to (or hadn't figured out a way to restrict it) and they also probably didn't believe frugal hard-headed people like me would actually use the free 3g access to do emails and the occasional mapquest on a Kindle. They make it free because they don't want people hesitating to visit AMazon and Buy, Buy, Buy. However, when they offered authors a better contract, they then began to offload some of the cost of download to the author (and I'm not complaining. I'll take 70 percent minus a small download fee over 35 percent any day of the week.) So these costs play SOME part of the equation in all countries. To say that it's free delivery to the reader...well. I'm guessing that is likely why they won't define all the various surcharges.
It is all a bit mysterious and a moving target, I agree.