|
While I am not as vociferous as kennyc I do think that Amazon is unlikely to "win" the ebook marketing wars. Primarily I think they will lose due to their somewhat arrogant 'big brother' attitude towards Kindle content. I've had my Kindle 2 for about 8 months now and I have purchased very few ebooks from Amazon.
I recently decided that I'd like some of my early, unwise, purchases of sexually explicit books removed from my Kindle list. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that I could not do that. In fact I was told that customer service has no way of removing the books other than as a refund and that could only be done within 7 days of purchase. Since there are headlines about Amazon removing content I was pretty certain that this was bull but it is representative of Amazon's Kindle/ebook policies. It appears as though Amazon's position is that they own the content of all ebooks and ebook devices sold by them and that customers are merely leasing them. Things like not giving Kindle owners the ability to change screensavers is indicative of their drive to control the product.
While I will continue to use my Kindle 2 until something better comes along, or until Amazon decides to make it more proprietary than it already is, I will not purchase many, if any, ebooks from them. eBook devices that are more open, more responsive to customer desires, and more versatile are going to dominate the market. Amazon's Kindle division would need new management before they could compete let alone 'win'.
|