Amazon is destroying e-reader innovation

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Sony had weird ideas in those days.

that's putting it mildly.

[fratermus]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

In your own way you people are just as much dinasaurs as the price fix BPH-5. You refuse to be flexible, you refuse to change, and you are the minority. So stick with your eink machines til they all die, the rest of us will continue marching on happily reading on whatever devices we have that can display ebooks, play music, make phone calls etc.

That seems needlessly harsh.

I own and read on both a Fire and a (dying) Touch; I can read longer without visual and physical fatigue on e-ink.

We vote with our money. This week I voted to replace the dying Touch with a PW2. Tracking shows it will arrive on my doorstep today.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

Amazon’s business model relies on their shareholders/board of directors allowing them to go on year after year without paying a single dollar in dividends. That works while their stock value keeps going up and their shareholders can take their profit in stock value, thus gaining the tax advantage of growing wealth over income. It seems to me that the model will max out someday when there is no longer anywhere for Amazon to expand so profitably, or alternatively, until Amazon becomes a true monopoly in the book business and are sued and broken up by the government’s regulators.

But what will the model become? It seems to me that all they will be able to do is increase prices.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

The only thing Amazon is guilty of is giving people what they want, all in one convenient place, at prices we are willing to pay. There is nothing illegal or destructive about that since we are the ones making the purchasing decisions.

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

Amazon has done nothing wrong. It's not their fault that people don't want to buy anything but a Kindle e-reader.

Huh? What are you both talking about? The thread is not accusing Amazon of doing anything wrong. It is asking if Amazon's dominance is effectively hindering innovation. Don't overact to a non-existent attack.

[kristalana]

Originally Posted by meeera

I could also get quite interested in a frontlight with adjustable warmth.

Yes! I hang on to my devices forever but I'd upgrade in a heartbeat if I could get this.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

As I said above, the markets are different because the buyers' interests are diferent. The (non-UK) euro markets are driven by techies and hobbyists, students and academics--people who are interested in the technology and not just the stories.

Such people exist in the US too. But instead of making up 40, 50, or even 80 percent of the market, we amount to a sliver.

Do you have data to back that up? To suggest that European readers are fundamentally different to Americans is silly. The difference is that the American and UK e-book market has gone mainstream and is mature, whereas in Europe it is not. Give it time.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Or perhaps Amazon's products give people what they want.

It's not giving me what I want. Am I then not included in your definition of 'people'?

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Do you have data to back that up? To suggest that European readers are fundamentally different to Americans is silly. The difference is that the American and UK e-book market has gone mainstream and is mature, whereas in Europe it is not. Give it time.

Aren't they? I'm thinking of the recent laws passed in the French Parliament, the one they intended to inhibit the spread of ebooks in order to preserve the culture of small bookstalls. Here, something like that causes an outcry against government interference with the markets.

It seems to me that there is a clearly different attitude toward cultural artifacts between the US and Europe.

edit: With regard to this discussion, I think that for Amazon to move into a world market they will have to innovate to meet the sensibilities of different people in different places. That or become a market for a specific portion of the bigger market.

Since Kobo has been brought in, it seems to me that the Kobo's flexibility is being prepared to meet the needs of both European and Asian markets, although it may only look like an unnecessary extravagance to us now.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by GERGE

Innovation haven't stopped but there is a limit of how fast you can improve.

And yet we see a variety of e-readers coming out of Europe and Asia, including 8", 9.7" and 13.3" e-readers, and e-readers using open Android. You can't get them in America.

I do appreciate you have stayed on-topic, but you appear to have ignored this point I made in the first post.

[Jessica Lares]

Originally Posted by Rizla

Huh? What are you both talking about? The thread is not accusing Amazon of doing anything wrong. It is asking if Amazon's dominance is effectively hindering innovation. Don't overact to a non-existent attack.

OK. I'll answer that and say no. They are not hindering innovation. E Ink themselves are, and it's just the fact that the technology isn't getting better fast enough.

Amazon couldn't even sell the Kindle DX. What makes you think they'll try that again?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Jessica Lares

Amazon has done nothing wrong. It's not their fault that people don't want to buy anything but a Kindle e-reader.

My thoughts exactly. Amazon can't control what the other makers of ereader tech do or don't do. If they choose to pull their ereaders out of the U.S. marketplace so that only Kindle is left (or close to that) how is that Amazon's fault? Likewise a good number of ebook sellers seem to have gone out of business of late so that Amazon is one of the few left. Amazon didn't force them to do so. Competition between companies is what pays for innovation in a product. You sell item x for $5.00 and either I sell something similar for under that amount or find a new way to do something which makes my product better in the eyes of the customer and then you do the same thing to attract customers back to you etc. The fewer markets for a given product the less need for innovation (in the eyes of the remaining companies) since the customer will have to buy from them.

[charmian]

In Europe and Asia, are these products successful (the non 6" readers)? As I see it, B&N, which has the second-highest US market share, isn't innovating much either, so the blame can't all be on Amazon. Kobo did do something different with the Aura HD, but was that enough to make them popular in the US? From what I hear they are still in the single digits.

If the products are successful in Europe and Asia, why aren't they successful in the US? They may only appeal to a niche market in Europe and Asia, but possibly the same niche market of enthusiasts exists in the US. Is it that the fringe market is only viable because mainstream consumers who would otherwise buy a 6", no frills, under $100 reader are forced to buy the more unsubsidized products since those are the only ones readily available?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Rizla

The difference is that the American and UK e-book market has gone mainstream and is mature, whereas in Europe it is not.

Thank you for agreeing with me.

Ebook tech was introduced simultaneously all over the world (give or take a few months) and essentially the same hardware and software is available all over.
Seven years post-Kindle, the US/UK ebook business constitutes 25-35% of book sales, while most continental markets run at 2.5-3.5%.

Specialty readers are profitable in europe but barely available in NorthAm. Presumably hecause the vendors don't expect them to sell enough.

What remains other than difference in consumer interest and makeup?

[GERGE]

Originally Posted by Rizla

And yet we see a variety of e-readers coming out of Europe and Asia, including 8", 9.7" and 13.3" e-readers, and e-readers using open Android. You can't get them in America.

I do appreciate you have stayed on-topic, but you appear to have ignored this point I made in the first post.

But making the screen bigger or putting software that is different but already used in other platforms is not innovation. Innovation means better solutions for one's needs. eReader are mainly used for reading novels and such, as Kindle DX sells also show, the better solitions for academic works and comic books already exist in the form of tablets.

A bigger screen or Android is not innovative, just different.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

In your own way you people are just as much dinasaurs as the price fix BPH-5. You refuse to be flexible, you refuse to change, and you are the minority. So stick with your eink machines til they all die, the rest of us will continue marching on happily reading on whatever devices we have that can display ebooks, play music, make phone calls etc.

I think you've given a good description of a casual reader vs a hard-core reader. I own a Kindle 3/keyboard, 2 other older eInk devices, an iPad and an iPhone. I keep a book on my iPhone so that I can read when it's the only device I have with me. I put the cookbooks and kids books on the iPad because its large color screen is conducive to enjoying those books. But for hard-core, heads-down, reading for many hours straight (can you say flight from LA to NYC?) it's eInk all the way. Easier on the eyes, easier on the battery.

Originally Posted by Manabi

There are other reasons to want e-ink devices to innovate and the market for them grow. Those screens use vastly less power than LED/LCD screens, and if they can eventually get to where their refresh rate and colors are comparable, they would greatly benefit all portable devices. So even if you think dedicated e-book readers are a dinosaur, you should still want e-ink to develop and grow. Someday it might make your tablet devices even more awesome. (For the record, I prefer tablets and don't even own an e-ink device, but I do hope the screens pan out as a replacement technology because of those benefits.)

Yeah, I'd like to see eInk become much more responsive so that a casual browser look-up --- particularly for terms which the dictionary doesn't recognize --- becomes viable. I'm not so keen for color eInk since I own a tablet and a PC/laptop for the things that really need color. I still like the idea of a dual-screen device with eInk for the text-rich experience and the back-lit screen for video and image-rich (and games!).

Originally Posted by ingmar

Frontlights, e.g. Yes, we have those by now, but this is actually something that makes an ereader better than a regular book. Other areas that come to mind are search functionality, built-in dictionaries, note taking, beach-worthiness (Is that a word? I mean water and sand proof) etc. It's still a dedicated reading device, though.

While I like multi-function devices such a a phone that can also play games and display video, when I'm reading, I don't *want* the distractions. That's one reason why I never got into reading on the PC even though I had discovered Baen and Project Gutenberg **long** before I got an eBook reader. The PC is home to my e-mail, the entire Web, and solitaire. I found I just couldn't concentrate on a book when I was trying to read on the computer.

Originally Posted by fratermus

I can read longer without visual and physical fatigue on e-ink.

Indeed. Which relates to my earlier comment about eInk being the best for someone who is going to read for a long time at one sitting.