Amazon to Charge by Megabyte for Personal Docs

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

This isn't ambiguous in wireless phone vendor speak. You could see almost identical language describing any "pay as you go" service. There is no monthly bill, data is $0.15 per MB (which isn't a "plan" because it involves no monthly fee), and there is no payment at all unless you ask Amazon to send you a personal document (no commitment).

This may be argued, except that the the second sentence of the ad's wireless service paragraph would imply otherwise:

"No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so you won't see a wireless bill."

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Yeah, and by the same logic, it would be a little hard to argue, that DRM is really DRM, when you can get a free tool to strip it....



You must love small print. And enjoy studying contracts and warranties (ah, the washing machine one, at 230 pages, must be heaven!)

Me, I like reading short ads with big claims. Like this one, from Amazon:

"No Wireless Bills
No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so you won't see a wireless bill. There is no wireless setup--you are ready to shop, purchase and read right out of the box." (http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons...pf_rd_i=507846)

If this "clearly" means "no free delivery" in some universe, it must be where all the structured financing guarantees came from.

And on the same page, in the same size type just a few inches away:

Personal Documents

Kindle makes it easy to take your personal documents with you, eliminating the need to print. Each Kindle has a unique and customizable e-mail address. You can set your unique email address on your Manage Your Kindle page. This allows you and your approved contacts to e-mail Word, PDF documents, and pictures wirelessly to your Kindle for a small per document fee--currently only 10¢ per document. Kindle supports wireless delivery of unprotected Microsoft Word, PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files.

You can email your PDFs wirelessly to your Kindle. Due to PDF's fixed layout format, some complex PDF files may not format correctly on your Kindle.

If you are not in a wireless area or would like to avoid the fee, you can send attachments to "name"@free.kindle.com to be converted and e-mailed to your computer at the e-mail address associated with your Amazon.com account login. You can then transfer the document to your Kindle using your USB connection. For example, if your Kindle email address is Jay@Kindle.com, send your attachments to Jay@free.kindle.com.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by Sonist

"No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so you won't see a wireless bill."

You won't see a wireless bill through normal use of Kindles wireless (websites, Kindle store, WhisperSync, etc.). You will see a bill from Amazon if you choose to use a specific, additional service which happens to also communicate with your Kindle wirelessly to work.

But you know this, you're not stupid. You just want to bash Amazon for some reason.

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Hey, I am not arguing that Amazon should give it away.

But their advertising implies something else. In bold letters. This is where the issue is, for me.

And in reality, they probably more than make it up in increased market share and current and future sales.

Well, nothing has changed except the amount of the fee. So the time to be up in arms about this was Nov 2007, when it started.

In the meantime, Amazon can quit selling books in mobi if they want, but I don't see what they can do about Baen and Fictionwise and Manybooks selling (or giving away) books in unDRMed (and thus better) mobipocket, which the Kindle can use just fine. I don't see how that is proprietary.

And if it's a big fat hairy deal to use Stanza or Calibre to produce mobipocket files on your own from your own documents of whatever sort, the Kindle will also read .txt files natively.

You can't get much more generic and non-proprietary than that.

[carld]

Originally Posted by HarryT

15c per MB is an absolute bargain for 3G wireless data transfer. I really don't think anyone has cause to complain about that.

It's less than the cost of ONE text message for me. So, yeah, not going to affect my use of Whispernet much at all.

[weatherman]

I don't care whether they are contractually obligated or whether their adverting implies that they won't raise the fee or not, this is totally shady and a really bad move on Amazon's part.

Amazon is not only increasing the baseline prices, they're completely changing the fee structure. This is outrageous considering that this comes so recently after releasing the Kindle 2. Certainly most people (like myself) bought the Kindle because of the wireless service, and most bought with an expectation that the fee structure would remain in place, if not always the same price.

Amazon's service is also not reliable enough to warrant a price increase at this point. Had Amazon done something to improve the process, or even just fixed what was wrong I might be more understanding, but they haven't. For example, I sent a document to myself the other day and when it didn't arrive for hours, I thought something must have been wrong with the document. I ended up sending it 6 times in different formats, only to get all 6 copies about six hours after I had sent the original document.

This does little to encourage trust of Amazon. Whether or not they can charge it or get away with it, or whether it's a nominal fee for most users, the autocratic decision to radically increase the cost of what was touted as the main feature of the Kindle is going to make many potential buyers choose a different device. And it's going to make those who already own a Kindle less likely to recommend it to their friends and more likely to choose something else when it comes time to upgrade.

These kinds of decisions have a big psychological impact on consumers., even if the monetary impact is small. This erodes the trust between vendor and customer, and is going to lead to customers making other choices. It's the same kind of thing that Microsoft suffered when they decided to cut off access to their customers downloaded music - why would anyone ever trust Microsoft again?

Mark my words; if Amazon does not reverse this decision and quick, this is going to be a big disaster for them.

[BarryTX]

Interesting debate, but what seems obvious to me is that this is a classic marketing move: offer a 'loss leader' service early on to garner sales, and when you have enough user base, increase the price of the money-losing service. It isn't 'bait and switch' because you are not locked in to using their service at all. We can use the USB cable for free, and Amazon can even still show that they are nice people and are willing to convert your docs for free (...at least for now...).

I imagine Amazon's business model shows they make a lot more money off of book sales than they ever could hope to by charging for wireless transfer of our personal documents, or for that matter, for any potential fees for conversion services. This simply is a service they can tout as available if you need it - read flexibility and ease for the user, which is always perceived to be a good thing in the marketing world.

Personally, it isn't a big deal to me because Calibre and a USB cord solves the problem very well. If I lose my cord I can always bite the bullet and email it to them and pay the pennies required for them to load it on my K2 for me.

But I understand those who thought Amazon would never escalate the cost of this service are disappointed and bothered by the change. I would recommend voicing the concern to Amazon customer service. Amazon is, at its core, a marketing-based company, and if enough people are aligned with a common view they will ultimately take note.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

15c per MB is an absolute bargain for 3G wireless data transfer. I really don't think anyone has cause to complain about that.

Well a flat rate is psychologically better.

I looked at some of the books I have downloaded to my phone and they were 2-4 MB. If i had to pay $0.15 per MB I had not downloaded so many books that I now have on the phone.

This is one of the reason I think WiFi and Bluetooth is better since then you can access the net using you phone and the data rate you have chosen there. You decide what kind of rate you want to have.

[Lemurion]

It's a change in degree - not in kind.

I don't like it on general principles, but I don't have a Kindle either. Still it's not something I'd scream about if I did. I'd grumble, yes, but not scream.

[khalleron]

Does SirBruce work for Amazon? It seems no matter what Amazon does, he's there cheering.

I don't own a Kindle, but I understand people's ire. Amazon justifies the higher price of the Kindle by the increased capabilities it has over the Sony, i.e. wireless access to books, documents and the web. If Amazon starts charging more for something people feel they've already paid for, then yes, anger is justified.

Changing the fine print - not a way to win the hearts and minds of your customers. Except SirBruce's, of course.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Does SirBruce work for Amazon? It seems no matter what Amazon does, he's there cheering.

I don't own a Kindle, but I understand people's ire. Amazon justifies the higher price of the Kindle by the increased capabilities it has over the Sony, i.e. wireless access to books, documents and the web. If Amazon starts charging more for something people feel they've already paid for, then yes, anger is justified.

Changing the fine print - not a way to win the hearts and minds of your customers. Except SirBruce's, of course.

My understanding is that all Amazon has ever said they would keep "free" is downloading of books bought at the Kindle store, and certain specific services, like Wiki searches. Everything else has always been "up for review".

3G traffic costs real money, and they someone has to pay for it. It's a little unreasonable to expect a Kindle to be an "unlimited traffic" internet connection for free .

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by HarryT

3G traffic costs real money, and they someone has to pay for it. It's a little unreasonable to expect a Kindle to be an "unlimited traffic" internet connection for free .

Except it's not 'free' - Kindle owners pay a premium for the device, which is not technically different from the Sony - except for the Whispernet.

That's what you buy when you buy a Kindle. That's what Amazon says it's selling when it sells you a Kindle. It's not as though they didn't know how much it costs ahead of time. Or if they didn't (which I *sincerely* doubt), Amazon is certainly big enough to eat the increased costs for their established customers and raise the price for future ones. Cable and phone companies do it all the time.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Except it's not 'free' - Kindle owners pay a premium for the device, which is not technically different from the Sony - except for the Whispernet.

That's what you buy when you buy a Kindle. That's what Amazon says it's selling when it sells you a Kindle. It's not as though they didn't know how much it costs ahead of time. Or if they didn't (which I *sincerely* doubt), Amazon is certainly big enough to eat the increased costs for their established customers and raise the price for future ones. Cable and phone companies do it all the time.

I agree with you - you are indeed paying a premium for the Whispernet capability. But from the advertising I've seen for it, it's all about wireless shopping in the Kindle store, and that's not changed. Amazon have never said (to the best of my knowledge - please correct me if I'm wrong!) "you can send your own data to the Kindle free of charge", have they?

Let's get it into perspective - it's not a high charge, is it? Most eBooks are well under 1MB, and will cost the minimum 15c to transmit. What this effectively amounts to, for the majority of transmitted documents, is simply an increase of the transmission cost from 10c to 15c.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My understanding is that all Amazon has ever said they would keep "free" is downloading of books bought at the Kindle store, and certain specific services, like Wiki searches. Everything else has always been "up for review".

3G traffic costs real money, and they someone has to pay for it. It's a little unreasonable to expect a Kindle to be an "unlimited traffic" internet connection for free .

And -- with the recent ability for Kindle users to get content from somewhere other than Amazon and deliver it through the Whispernet (Calibre and Feedbooks for sure and maybe others) the use of Whispernet is increasing for other than browsing Amazon's store and purchasing books from Amazon and the occasional search of Wikipedia.

Personally, I like a pricing scheme that asks the heavy users of a function to pay for it. I rarely turn on the antenna on my Kindle -- and that's usually when I have several "samples" queued to download. So, I should never see a bill for use of the Whispernet. But others who are taking advantage of the easy delivery of non-Amazon content will pay for it. I choose to spend my TIME downloading and transferring content through my PC instead of MONEY to do the same through the Whispernet.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Does SirBruce work for Amazon? It seems no matter what Amazon does, he's there cheering.

No, but I'm a longtime Amazon customer since they started and they gave me a very nice credit card so there's a lot of loyalty built up there.

Originally Posted by khalleron

I don't own a Kindle, but I understand people's ire. Amazon justifies the higher price of the Kindle by the increased capabilities it has over the Sony, i.e. wireless access to books, documents and the web. If Amazon starts charging more for something people feel they've already paid for, then yes, anger is justified.

The way certain people are talking and reacting to this news leads me to think they don't understand it. Amazon is not charging $0.15 per megabyte to download books! They're not charging $0.15 per megabyte to use the web! They're only charging $0.15 per megabyte to use their email document conversion service wirelessly, which pratically speaking effects a tiny percentage of their customer base. These people can still use the conversion service for free, or use a third-party program like Calibre, and put the converted books on their Kindle via USB. Or even via a website wirelessly if they're clever.