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Originally Posted by charmian
1. Prices of e-readers and tablets dropped. Right now e-ink readers seem to have ceased dropping in price, which is unfortunate.
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ebook readers aren't going to drop in price until another big market matures and starts buying readers by a few million a year. As is, component costs have remained flat for a couple years now. Part of the problem is that dedicated readers make sense primarily for avid readers and most of the US growth in ebook adoption from now on is going to come from casual readers who do their reading on phones, tablets, and PCs. The economies of scale aren't there for much lower prices. We may see a $49 KSO or Kobo mini but that's it for now. And $49 is no game changer; it's not going to bring in casual readers, just younger avid readers.
As for competition for Amazon... Well, what you see is what you'll get for a while. Avid readers are already committed to Amazon or Nook--Kobo is an afterthought, and Google trickling--so expect no big change there unless Nook implodes and their customers start looking for a new supplier, which I doubt is going to happen just yet.
The competition now is to capture casual readers and that fight is where we may see some surprises; right now it is Amazon and Apple with a bit of Google but there is a lot of room there for other players to leverage their brands. Samsung, for one. The big problem is the price fix conspiracy stunted the growth of indie ebookstores and concentrated the market into two-and-a-half players; Kindle and Nook plus Apple. With Nook bleeding from self-inflicted wounds and indies folding there isn't much incentive for new competitors just yet.
Things *will* change but that will be next year after the current soap operas wrap up. But for now everybody is waiting to see what xmas brings: a Nook recovery or a B&N exit from ebooks.