One thing to consider: their market ( be it a reason or an outcome ) places, or the only country in the world, where Amazon is selling the Kindle.
I am looking into buying (decided on Sony, need wife's approval) e-Reader, I cannot go to a store and get a Kindle (I live in Canada and I know there is a way but it shouldn't be that hard to buy a book
), that means I cannot just log onto Amazon book site and buy a book.
I am guessing that their marketing ploy works when it comes to catering to a limited clientele. It is like Ipod folks deciding to limit first batch of mp3 players to, lets say, Zimbabwe, and you can download music only in one village - everywhere else you have to order a CD to copy.
So the comparability does not really work in this particular case.