|
The close association in function between a phone and a service provider just isn't there for ebooks.
You don't buy an "ebook service". You buy the ebooks. One at a time. It's a fundamental difference. My phone is instantly useless if I can't make calls, but I definitely want my ereader to keep working if I stop buying books.
One model that might work is subscriber access to large ebook libraries. But this seems limited in relevance to academic books and most academics and engineers already have direct access via their companies institutional subscriptions.
The price curve will gradually go sub 100 soon enough, no need to hurry. I'm actually very surprised at how quickly they achieved $149 with the Kobo, that's an impressive feat of engineering.
|