[haydnfan]

Originally Posted by jswinden

For anyone who has been purchasing eReaders since they first debuted with eInk screens, the $300 current price tag is still less than they sold for a decade ago.

With any new technology the price is high in the early adoption phase. That's based upon supply-demand and earning back the r&d costs. It's a mistake to compare the cost of a first generation Kindle to the Oasis because their cost was set for very different reasons.

When I first bought a dvd player, I spent $200, and I knew people just the year before that paid $300. A few years later only a fool would pay that much for a dvd player. But a few dvd players were priced that high and higher. Those were niche players for videophiles.

The first generation kindle was expensive because it was in the early adoption phase of what would be a mass market product. The Oasis is expensive because it is a product for a niche market. It is meant to do two things (a) sell to a small group of people for whom money is no object, and (b) prop up poor Voyage sells (it makes the Voyage look cheaper in comparison and thus more enticing).

I wish everyone here would please stop with the "Oasis is reasonably priced because the Kindle 1 was expensive" illogical stupid mantra.

Yes, Amazon did sell cheap devices for long enough of a time to virtually capture the market. Look at what happened to so many of the competitors like the B&N Nook and Sony. Where are their eInk eReaders now? They are extinct! Look at what happened to so many of the competitors like the B&N Nook and Sony. Where are their eInk eReaders now? They are extinct!

Nook just launched a new eink reader. They are clearly not extinct. I disagree with looking at the hardware market. Since the majority of readers of ebooks are doing their reading on tablets and phones, it is the ebook market that needs to be looked at. The major competitors are Apple and Kobo.

Also your narrative is just wrong. There was price matching across the board on eink readers. Kobo, Kindle, Nook kept lowering prices and adding features and the other companies would follow suit. It was not the price of the ereader that allowed amazon to monopolize the market. Amazon priced their ebooks lower than everyone else and made the shopping experience frictionless. Just look at Sony, how many steps did it take to buy and get an ebook on the reader? And you needed a computer!