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Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom
The problem is the publishers saw this as spilling over beyond ebooks. They are protecting their cash cow, the hardback sale, by making sure ebooks do not get too popular, at a price which is lower than the cash cow. If they can make sure ebooks sell at the same price as the cash cow, then they are indifferent to what you buy. One of Amazon's biggest selling points for the kindle was best sellers at $9.99 (unless they aren't). I understand not wanting Amazon to control the ebook market - how has that worked out for music and Apple? Why is it okay for Jobs but not for Bezos? Or is it that they saw what happened to music, and its cash cow the album sale, and they don't want the same thing to happen to the hardback?
This will definately slow the adoption of ebooks. I don't know if they have taken a large enough hold that they will survive. For myself, if I can't get the books in ebook format from the library (MacMillan doesn't sell to libraries), and my choice is between a $5.89 paperback and a $6.99 ebook, I am going to have to think long and hard about pushing the buy button. Not because the $1.10 is a lot of money, but because it bothers me to have to pay more when I know the unit cost is less. That is why I first came to MR - I wanted to complete my Sookie Stakehouse collection, and Amazon had some of the back issues at a price greater than the corresponding paperback. I was able to buy the ebook elsewhere at a price I considered fair, and convert it for my kindle.
I can see why Amazon caved. The windowing threat is huge. Look how mad we all got about Game Change.
Do you think this is a death knell for ebooks, except among the small group of hard core converts on MR?
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Don't you worry about eBooks there lass. If you would bother to review history for a moment you would see that every market Apple has entered, besides the PDA (Newton) market, (though PDAs did take off, just not during the Newton's run) has exploded shortly thereafter. You may not realize this but every modern laptop is based around Apple's groundbreaking PowerBook design. The MP3 player market barely subsisted on awful 32mb flash players that cost hundreds of dollars until apple slapped everyone in the face with the iPod. The iPhone comes out and 3 years later nearly every cell phone being made is a smartphone, and the market trend has completely inverted with consumers overwhelmingly claiming they have or plan to get a smartphone (iPhone or not).
Oh yeah, and never mind the personal computer...
So frankly, though Amazon has been doing... well they won't actually tell the truth about how they've been doing, but, at least people have heard of Kindles. So they must be doing okay... Apple will blow this thing wide open. It's in their best interest to do so. They push apps on the app store for the iPhone because they get 30%, they'll push eBooks for the same reason now.
Regardless of how you feel about Apple, and their product designs, ads, etc. they are undeniably successful, particularly in the popular media segment. So really, don't sweat it for the eBook. It's obviously the future, King Jobs has decreed it
