Quote:
Originally Posted by jswinden
As far as Kindles go, Amazon sells you what Amazon wants you to buy. They are not about listening to customers to find out what they want. They are about telling you this is the Kindle you want and it has all the formatting and features you want, and amazingly enough people buy into that BS. 
Kobo tries to build readers that are closer to what customers want. The hardware is nice. Unfortunately they don't seem to know how to program the firmware though. Nor do they seem to understand the retail market, at least as far as the USA goes.
Amazon puts its main focus on having a second to none bookstore and reading experience. Want book, find book easily, buy book, read book, buy another book. They can get away with lackluster Kindle updates using that model because customers can find and read what they want and when they want. Kobo puts its main focus on the hardware. But MOST people don't want to have to convert book formats, use an app like calibre to manage their library, etc. Geeks here at MR do, but people most don't! Without a great bookstore and library capability, Kobo will remain on the edge of failure, much like B&N and Sony did with their eReaders. |
I think Amazon doesn't give the outliers what they want. They pander to the common customer who will use what they are given.
Most don't care about hyphenation or what format as long as it shows up on their device easily and without much effort. Yes, I realize that at least 100,000 customers have jailbroke their kindles. But when you sell at least 4 million ereaders a year, that 100,000 is nothing.
So here is a for thought question:
You have a new product. Do you go to the extra time and expense to please those 10 customers or do you make more profit and pander to the 990 that just want the product to do what it says it will do?
Oh and it looks like Amazon has listened to a point on the design.
From reading other threads, it appears that 2 out of 3 heavy readers like the design of the Oasis. (Actual owners).