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No conspiracy, it's fairly straightforward business as far as I can see. Bezos has said something about how they want to expand their supply chain and people here are reading into that what they wish for.
Having bought up a company that understands DRM, and created something that gives them exclusive control over the chain from publisher to customer, Amazon are unlikely to give that up. By all accounts, the kindle has very successfully found some of Amazon's most regular customers and, by locking them in, guaranteed that they will remain loyal to the company. Why do anything to loose that?
The reasoning against licensing Kindle reader software on a competing e-reader is that the customer can then move freely to other book formats, and hence other stores. Why let your loyal customers buy a Sony if they can then buy ePub books from Waterstones, Borders or whoever? The one off license fee per device (say $10 for the purposes of argument) is not worth the loss of say $4 per book that you make selling them content through your own store.
EBooks are actually quite a threat to Amazon. As a distributor of physical objects, it has set up a supply chain that is worldwide, efficient and cost effective. It's almost impossible for anyone to compete with that as the cost of setting up such an infrastructure from scratch is enormous. However, the infrastructure to supply ebooks worldwide is tiny - a few servers and a rack of hard disks. You can even rent the sort of equipment you need. So a competitor can set up shop with a budget of thousands, not millions of dollars, and if they find that magic 'google factor' that has people coming to their website first, Amazon will find their market eroded. At the moment, Amazon are protected by the slow uptake of ebooks and the relatively few e-readers available. They can see that changing, and the Kindle is a play to ensure that Amazon customers remain Amazon customers.
It's not a conspiracy, just business 101. If your money comes from selling razor blades, you want to ensure that people will only buy your razor blades - so you come up with a handle that only fits the blades that you sell. Amazon aren't doing anything evil by trying to protect their business, but neither are they acting in any way charitably to their customers. They care about making money, not about distributing great literature to a wide audience. There is no philanthropy or social contract here - they are a business.
As I said earlier, if they can put Kindle reader software on non-competing devices - say an exclusive deal with a Netbook manufacturer, or on more Apple devices - then they will do so. However, they wouldn't want to put that software on anything that gives the owner a 'no brainer' way to buy through other ebook stores. So, don't expect a deal with Sony or Cybook or anything else that has competing e-reader software pre-installed.
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