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Originally Posted by artificial
It makes me wonder about the future of eReader hardware. I imagine maufacturers that are not affiliated with a book store will find it very hard to match the low prices of the Kindle/Nook/Kobo.
Amazon, B&N and Kobo/Borders can afford to price their eReaders cheaply because they know they will recoup their investment from book sales. As you say, the real money is in books, and the hardware is a loss leader.
But what about other eReaders? Their future might be very bleak...
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Once the economies of scale kick in, the costs to make eReader hardware will drop like a stone. I'd bet you'll see Kobos settle in at well under $75 by the time that happens - unless they do an about face and start adding features instead of dropping the price. But their model does seem to be to get the users hooked on buying the content from them by having the lowest possible cost threshold for customers to get into the game.
Personally though, the way that prices trend for any technology hardware these days, I'm surprised that anybody gets into that kind of business without having some sort of content delivery business that actual gives them the profits.