Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggie Leung
Marketing helps, but many buyers know about Sony readers and compare before they buy Kindles. I bought a Kindle because it was easy to use and Amazon is the world's biggest bookseller. E-readers are only one of Sony's many electronics categories, and I considered whether I would be stranded if Sony withdrew.
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I'm probably something of a special case, because my specific reason for buying an ebook reader in the first place was so that I could read Project Gutenberg in bed. I very rarely purchase hardcover fiction, and most of my non-fiction isn't generally suitable for an ebook reader anyway (tending to be oversized and in color), so the idea of paying twice the paperback price for an ebook never appealed to me in the first place; that made the store integration effectively irrelevant. When I do buy ebooks, they're DRM-free downloads, usually from Baen or BVC, so there's no weirdness about loading them on my 505. That also means I'm not going to be stranded if Sony just wanders vaguely off in another direction, as they do seem prone to doing.
I tried out a Kindle, and I simply didn't like it. It felt flimsy. The keyboard was a waste of space, and actually got in the way of how I naturally wanted to hold it. Page turning wasn't as convenient.
When you see surveys, articles, etc., comparing the Kindle and Nook, and perhaps the iPad, without any mention of the Sony Reader (which, going by device forum user counts here on MobileRead, is second only to the Kindle in popularity, and way ahead of the rest) you know it's not because of the quality or features of the device itself. It's because Amazon and B&N have marketed their devices effectively, and Sony, which has been coasting since the PS2 (and possibly since the Walkman), totally blew it on marketing; it's one of the first ebook readers, but a lot of people have no idea it even exists.
This leaves me wondering if the future is the iTunes model (tight device/content-supplier) integration, or the record store model (buy a record from any label, play it on any stereo). As a consumer, wanting choices and the benefits of open market competition, I naturally favor the latter; producers, eager for platform lock-in, favor the former.
Since they're the ones with all the clout (not to mention the lawyers to abuse the DMCA, etc.) they're looking likely to win at this point. I wonder how long until calibre will be outlawed? If we want a more consumer-friendly market (like that for physical records, paper books, etc.) we, as somewhat better-informed consumers and early adopters, need to educate those around us.
Remember that Amazon, Sony, B&N, or any other device-maker/bookseller combination, or in fact any company in existence, do
not have our best interests at heart. They have their own, and only their own. If screwing us over will bump the company stock price a couple of points, it's not only what they will do, but in many cases what they're legally
required to do. None of them are our friends. They are our adversaries. If they could make calibre illegal, if they could make Project Gutenberg illegal, if they could make MobileRead illegal, they would; I have no doubt that they are exploring ways to do exactly that. So, just like they see us as a resource to be used, not as human beings, we have to see them the same way. We can't ever fall into the trap of thinking any corporation is benign, even helpful. They're not. They can't be. If they were, they'd never have gotten big enough to see, because some properly sociopathic competitor would have eaten their lunch long ago. Amazon is not your friend. Sony is not your friend. B&N is not your friend. Etc. They are nobody's friends but their stockholders'.
Remember one critical thing about the free market: It is beneficial to consumers, and the public as a whole, but it is inimical to businesses. No business wants to be merely the strongest competitor; they want to be the
only competitor. For a business, the ideal condition is a monopoly:
their monopoly. They don't want to build a better mousetrap. They want a legal lock on mousetrap sales. Contrary to what the cable and telecom companies insist, the increased profits from a true or de-facto monopoly do not fund "innovation"; they fund executive pay and sometimes shareholders' dividends. Innovation is only driven by competition. Why build a better mousetrap if everyone who needs a mousetrap already has to buy it from you anyway? Any mousetrap R&D goes toward building a mousetrap that can be built more cheaply and sold for the same price, especially if it will wear out sooner and require users to buy more mousetraps (the ideal, of course, being a single-use disposable mousetrap). It's only if, and when, someone does actually build a better mousetrap -- and is not legally or practically prohibited from bringing it to market -- that innovation happens.
If they can build a future with legally-mandated platform lock-in, with legally-required purchases from their stores, and only their stores, then they will do so. In today's market, where average users equate their reading device with the store it's locked to, they could do that and nobody but the mavericks like us would notice. It's really up to us to make sure that the people we can reach -- our families, our friends, our co-workers -- know that this model isn't the only one, that there are alternatives, and know
why those alternatives matter. We need to make sure that everyone knows that platform lock-in, that vendor lock-in, that walled gardens are bad for us. They're bad for the market. We need to make people understand that what is important in an ebook reader (or an MP3 player, or any other device) is not how much content its manufacturer makes available, but whether it has the flexibility to use content from any source, like a record player that can play any record, so that they are not at the mercy of any one vendor. It really is about freedom.