Ad-Supported Kindle?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Well, I think the page I'm looking at is the one that most people see--not the press release or the help pages.

Your page only shows 4 of the 7 offers Amazon has revealed so far. They're good examples of what to expect for future offers.

[soondai]

wow

This is almost irresistible if any of the big offers works for you.

Honestly the only thing making me hesitate is that I have no need for a kindle itself, and that's not really rational. Kinda have to agree w tubemonkey: this is a good buy just as a coupon dispenser.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by soondai

wow

This is almost irresistible if any of the big offers works for you.

Honestly the only thing making me hesitate is that I have no need for a kindle itself, and that's not really rational. Kinda have to agree w tubemonkey: this is a good buy just as a coupon dispenser.

A Kindle, a Roku, music, ebooks, audiobooks, and gift cards are just some of the items on my gift list. Someone at Amazon peeked at my list.

[soondai]

Probably worth it for me just to get the 100 dollar gift card for getting a credit card through them and the 20 dollar card for 10 bucks.

We buy all our baby supplies through Amazon Mom. Should probably get the card to earn points given all we spend.

Cripes, I think I'll do it. I do think this is an experiment and they might drop the price again to 99 pretty quickly. I'll just have to remind myself to turn on the Kindle daily to check the deals

[stickybuns]

Originally Posted by Catlady

But as a practical matter, how many people would really do that?

I think it's likely that a lot of their offers will be one per customer, so they may keep offering them, but only new buyers will be able to take advantage.

I also doubt that people will be returning their ad-supported Kindles to protest a lack of special offers. If anything, the Kindles will be preloaded with enough offers to keep folks happy for the first 30 days.

BUT, if the offers suddenly vanish after that, what are the customer reviews going to look like? Unless this new Kindle is just a one-time only promotion, it really is in Amazon's best interest to keep a steady flow of offers coming.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by stickybuns

I also doubt that people will be returning their ad-supported Kindles to protest a lack of special offers. If anything, the Kindles will be preloaded with enough offers to keep folks happy for the first 30 days.

BUT, if the offers suddenly vanish after that, what are the customer reviews going to look like? Unless this new Kindle is just a one-time only promotion, it really is in Amazon's best interest to keep a steady flow of offers coming.

They're not going to vanish, but do you really think Amazon's going to keep offering $20 gift cards for $10? I think that kind of offer--one that everyone would of course jump on--is the bait. Most likely there will be offers of discounts on specific items, and if you want that item, great, if you don't, tough.

Again, none of the offers are active offers yet--they are examples.

And again, what's the fine print? On the Audible offer, for example--do you have to buy a certain number of other books to get the good deal?

Some of you exhibit a touching faith in Amazon; perhaps a little more skepticism is in order.

[soondai]

If the offers come with odious catches, I will return it.

I expect the initial offers will cover the 114. (I would take the extra 70 on the Amazon card, the 20 dollar gift card for 10, and 20 bucks off a pair of jeans. That comes to 100 bucks in useful savings for me)

I'm sure you're right that the offers after the first wave won't be as irresistable. But I imagine there will be a good offer or two every month, at minimum)

[stickybuns]

Originally Posted by Catlady

They're not going to vanish, but do you really think Amazon's going to keep offering $20 gift cards for $10?

I think that they'll keep the offers at a level that will prevent a customer backlash while still allowing them to make a profit. It is in Amazon's best interest to offer the fantastic deals juuuuuuuust often enough to keep the average, coupon-motivated customer satisfied (or at least, less inclined to post complaints and negative reviews).

[bhartman36]

Originally Posted by soondai

If the offers come with odious catches, I will return it.

I expect the initial offers will cover the 114.

Maybe I'm just too cynical, but I don't think it's in Amazon's interests to let people recoup their $114 right away. I suspect you'll recoup it, and probably faster than you would for a regular Kindle 3 Wifi or 3G, but I'd be very surprised if you broke even after only 30 days. That would essentially be a free Kindle. I suspect there will be lots of offers, but probably not to the extent that a lot of people will be taking advantage of them all at once.

[JSWolf]

Ok, here's what you do. Buy an advert supported Kindle. Then buy enough $20 for $20 gift cards to buy a regular Kindle. Then sell off the ad supported Kindle for say $70 and there you have a regular Kindle for free.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by porkupan

Wow, amazing stuff! Amazon is going after the people who would watch commercials and accept ads on their spam-terminal (a.k.a. ebook device) in order to save 25 bucks. Sure looks like a great deal, doesn't it?

Of course, $25 is a lot of money in some parts of the world, but in the U.S. it no longer is. There must be some people who would give their email address to Chinese spammers for the privilege of saving $3 on a purchase of an eight-dollar SD card, but in my opinion they are doing a major disservice to their own email account. Now Amazon wants a piece of that game: to spam you, and it will give you $25 for it. Special offers! Yeah!

Who is going to buy this piece of crap? Well, I am sure there will be some takers. Mostly students or starving artists (do they read?), who will soon hack their "KSO" to convert it into just "K". Many of those cheapskates won't be buying much content from Amazon (if they can afford to buy ebooks from Amazon, they are probably not interested in saving $25 to get spammed). So, it's a pure hardware dump. With those production numbers the cost of manufacturing a kindle must have gone all the way down to $50...

I am surprised that Bezos didn't give the spam-kindle away for free with a mandatory $10-a-month content subscription (cancellable any time after 3 years). Well, maybe he will, half a year from now.

People who buy a $114 Kindle because they cannot afford the $25, won't be able to afford to buy any eBooks.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Me ...why? Because I'm getting it free.

It's only free if you would have spent the money on all those offers anyway. And I doubt it. So it's probably not really free.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by porkupan

I must've missed the story here. Why are you getting it for free?

He just thinks he is/ But really, he's buying into their offers and spending even more. OK, the $10 for a $20 gift card will give $10 back on the KindleAD but the rest are just more money spent.

[RockdaMan]

If Amazon wants to keep up sales of the Ksd, they will have to continue to offer attractive deals. Simply answered.

I haven't seen anywhere that it is a limited-time offer, so they are obviously going to do whats necessary to make it continually attractive.

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I can't agree. Every eBook I've read since I got my device 16 months ago has been free. My jetBook Lite paid for itself in only 3 months.

In my experience, the person without much money for books is the perfect candidate for an inexpensive eBook reader.

That's a fair point. I still think that after six months went by, if someone didn't find use out of the deals they may wind up thinking "Meh, I wish I had just spent the extra 25 bucks so this Doritos ad wouldn't be on my menu screen, and every time I open the cover I didn't see ads for anti-depressants and deals for 10% off diapers". I guess it all comes down to how much you care about the ads. If they don't bother you one bit, even a few bucks off is worth it.

So long as it's optional, it's not my concern. If it becomes standard in the next generation, I wouldn't buy it (and be rather sad).