Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
(Another caveat might be if Amazon were to cut their own throat by making Kindles incapable of displaying ebooks without DRM. That might lock people into Amazon but I seriously, seriously, doubt that will happen.)
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To do that they would have to require all Kindle books be DRM'ed, remove all their apps from the market, and be ready to go to court the next day, on antitrust.
Otherwise people would just use the apps on other companies' hardware.
Amazon makes minimal money from hardware so why would they make such a mess to force people to use their hardware? Their business is selling content and everything that gets between the content and the consumer is bad for Amazon. Including DRM.
Theoretically, there was a time back in 2007-8 when Amazon needed lock-in but that time is long gone; by now network effects and the tyranny of the installed base is all the lock-in they might need. Which is why the price fix conspiracy left them stronger than ever and their competitors weaker; it pretty much guaranteed nobody could sell ebooks cheaper and if nobody was cheaper, why would newcomers go to any other platform?