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Amazon Kindle’s Content Pricing Structure Is Its Achilles’ Heel

By Alexander Grundner | November 21st, 2007 comments icon View Comments


newsweek bezos kindle coverIt always seem I have a contrarian point of view than the mainstream tech analysts and pundits. In this case, it’s in regard to Amazon Kindle; a new eBook reader that promises to deliver book, magazine, newspaper, and blog content in a convenient wireless handheld. In principal, the device gets an “A” for functionality in comparison to its competitors (see the video demo provided by Amazon). However, the pricing structure is completely unreasonable, thus making the device a turn off to the majority of users who would like to take advantage of everything the device has to offer.

Here’s what I mean. Amazon wants to charge users per:

  • book order ($9.99)
  • newspaper subscription ($5.99 to $14.99 per month)
  • magazine subscription ($1.25 to $3.49 per month)
  • blog subscription ($0.99/mo for each site)
  • email conversion of word docs and images ($0.99 per each instance)

* Not to mention the Kindle device itself costs $399.

So, for example, if I want to buy 1 book a month ($9.99), subscribe to 2 magazines ($2.99ea), 2 newspapers ($9.99ea), and 5 blogs ($0.99ea), I can potentially be spending at minimum $45 a month on Kindle provided content. Ahhh, no thanks – especially when you consider you can get most of this stuff for free via any web enabled device (might as well buy the ASUS Eee PC or the Nokia N800/N810 for this duty). As for eBooks, you can buy them online relatively cheap (if you prefer the electronic format) and magazines are still best viewed on full color, glossy paper (sorry).

Now if the premium content was available in a discounted package deal… that would be something to consider.

One other thing….

I believe the only way eBooks are ever going to take off, and replace physical books, is if they adopt an open format that’s interoperable on a variety of devices and can be shared with friends and passed down to family (in 2002 Jeff Bezos would have agreed with me) – similar to MP3/OGG Vorbis with music. The good news is a format like this already exists. You can learn more about .epub here.

Other takes on Kindle:

Jeremy Toeman

Michael Gartenberg

Wired Blog


Filed in: Portable Media Players  



____________
Alexander Grundner is the Editor & Publisher of eHomeUpgrade. He has been following "Digital Home" developments since 2003. You can catch his daily tech musings on Twitter: @agrundner.
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  • Andrew McLaughlin
    This is a first generation device. People who buy it will most certainly enjoy it. But not sure who exactly are the consumer of this device right now. Future generations of this device will be much improved and cheaper over time. I still don't fully understand the justification behind putting EVDO in this thing; sure it makes it stupid-proof. But the cost impact doesn't seem worth it. I'm sure that is what is driving the underlying cost of the device and subscriptions.




    For a company like Amazon to develop and test a product like this and float a balloon out there in the marketplace to gauge demand / reaction; this is an insignificant R&D effort. The long term market and price structure for a device like this are likely very profitable and lucrative. And Amazon seems to be the perect player with all the relationships, distribution, content, etc. to make this happen.





    Of course, Google could release something like this for free (ad-supported) and open source and turn the whole thing upside down. Either way, it's actually nice to see a device like this emerge on the scene to show some new thinking in the marketplace.
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