[bowerbird]

this was originally mis-posted into another thread,
so i apologize if some quotes are from elsewhere.

***

nekokami said:
> I think it depends on what you consider "dedicated."

i can answer that in one word -- e-mail.
if you can read e-mail and write responses
on it, that machine will be "good enough",
at least for a good percentage of people.

if you can throw in general web-browsing,
then i think you'll satisfy almost everyone.
(mapquest on the go is a _big_necessity_.)

on yeah, has to be a phone/mp3 player, as
otherwise, we'd have to carry two devices.

there are machines out there that do this!
i don't know why nobody ever talks about
the sidekick. everyone i know who has one
raves about it. but look at what they cost!
(and then up that price for a better screen.
and notice they are subsidized with plans.)

but on ebay, a used sidekick holds its value,
because people are willing to pay that much
for a machine that can do what it does, and
no profit-minded company will sell for less.
(and anyone who thinks they will is wrong.)

***

jashsu said:
> are you honestly saying that you cannot see
> a massive difference in cost of materials
> between these two?

i'm saying if you can build a dedicated reader
that you can profitably sell for $50, _do_it_!

do it _now_, for crying out loud, you'll sell millions!


> When the dedicated e-book reader is priced at $300,
> its because the company is making a $150 profit selling it.

ya know, i'm cynical about corporate greed -- really cynical --
but even i cannot be _that_ cynical. not even close. you win!

the machine sony sells for $350 _costs_ $350 to make and sell,
once you figure in all the corporate overhead, which you must.
(selling the thing -- which includes support -- costs more than
its manufacture in the first place, often _quadruple_ as much.)

that $50 "credit" that sony gives new purchasers now is the $50
they're willing to lose now so as to get customers for the future.

the $650 iliad probably costs $750 to make and sell (because
the spin-off doing it doesn't have sony's economies of scale).
they're burning the parent-company's money as an investment.

***

radleyp said:
> I don't think Amazon needs any subsidy at all.
> Consider cellphones: dealers will give them to you free,
> provided you sign up for some service contract.
> Amazon could do exactly the same thing: a free reader
> with a one-year subscription, say, to their ebook library.
> The cost of the reader is absorbed into the service contract.

um, except that's exactly what a subsidy is.

and i'm sure they'd be happy to do just that, but
their 1-year plan would likely require you to buy
four dozen books -- just 1 book a week, folks! --
at a price of $25 each, which works out to $1200.

which might not seem _that_ bad -- especially to
those heavy readers out there -- until they realize
the books from which they're allowed to choose are
the ones that sell in the bookstores for $8.99 each...

and don't forget the d.r.m., which means that you
cannot pass the e-books on to friends or relatives,
like you can with those $8.99 bookstore p-books.

(ironically, it will be the d.r.m. which sky-rockets
calls to tech-support, raising that price sky-high,
which is why everything will cost so damn much.)

oh, maybe we forget to mention that, because of
the extra special deal you got on this "$50 reader",
we had to disallow loading "unauthorized content".

and none of your _personal_ content is "authorized".

sorry.

but you _can_ purchase our "blanket authorization",
which we have on sale (this month only!) for $398,
regular price $599, meaning you save _over_$200!_

do you get the picture?

anyway, in summary...

any scheme to "give them the razor for free and
charge them for the blades" is simply impossible
when so many people are giving away free blades.
(more content than you could read in your life is
already available free of charge on the internet.)

so you're chasing a pipedream, folks.

i'm sorry to bear this bad news. but anyone else
who says something different is trying to rob you
by giving you a "deal"... you're too smart for that.

-bowerbird

p.s. however, since i hate to leave you on a sour note,
take heart in the fact that _eventually_, full computers
will weigh less than 6 ounces and have screens that
are visible in full daylight _and_ also glow in the dark,
and can be folded just like a piece of paper and put in
your pocket. (technically, it will _be_ a piece of paper,
one that has had a special electrical grid painted on it.)
and, wonder of wonders, it will cost you a mere $389.
(that might sound like a lot now, but when this miracle
comes to pass, that will be what a loaf of bread costs,
so it'll actually be quite affordable, even to the masses.)
you just have to live for 57 more years for it to happen.
but i'm gonna live until i'm 191, so i'll be _stylin'_... :+)