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Free Kindle This November

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Re: Free Kindle This November

#11

Post by jerf »

Nogwater wrote: post #6

By this logic, Amazon will pay you to take a Kindle by the start of next year. Amazon makes future money on Kindle owners because they're avid book readers and they buy a lot of eBooks. If Amazon were to give away Kindles for free a lot of non-avid readers would pick them up just to have one, which would kill the model. I think a $99 price point (maybe $49 with Prime) makes a lot more sense.

While that line obviously can not extend downwards forever, it would not surprise me at all that the Kindle eventually comes with an $X credit good for about 2 or 3 ebooks as well as the semi-free price tag, which is close enough to paying you that it fits, I think. The market is enormous and once the hardware is all-but-free hooking you in with a few "free" ebooks is a no-brainer. Ebooks aren't free but their marginal costs are almost indistinguishable from "free".

Re: Free Kindle This November

#13

Post by barredo »

Let's say:

Free 3G-Kindle for a 30$/12 months contract that includes 2 books a month and a newspaper subscription. Seems a pretty good deal to me.

180$ for the Kindle at current price, 100$ for royalties to publishers and Amazon will keep 80$ and the money extra the user spends on buying extra books.

Re: Free Kindle This November

#14

Post by jerf »

gcheong wrote: post #8

How does paying $80/year make something "free"?

There are a number of ways to get Prime for essentially-free or even straight-up free. Students can get it free for a year [1], and Amazon Mom [2] provides it essentially free for parents of young children. You have to buy $25/month of qualifying goods, but we have not found this to be a challenge if you're still on diapers. (And Amazon is quite competitive on diapers.) YMMV.

It seems to me that Amazon is desperate for you to have Prime, but as what is basically a loyalty program, it doesn't work for them if they simply give it away. The customer has to feel engaged somehow, either by paying for it, or feeling like they're getting something really valuable for some promotional reason. I personally suspect that as the Amazon Mom's year ends or the student's year comes up that the announcement will be made that out of the goodness of their heart, Amazon has decided to simply extend the program for another year or something, and that as they can work out reasonable excuses to give you a free Prime subscription they will continue to do so. Just my best guess based on the business situation.

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info

[2]: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mom/signup/welcome

Re: Free Kindle This November

#15

Post by jrwoodruff »

drawkbox wrote: post #9

This is exciting for many reasons but one being educational systems may finally start adopting the digital tablet.

Studies have shown the kindle is not robust enough for most classroom settings. Lack of note taking, slow page turning, etc. slowed down classes and caused students to eventually print out assignments:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/201...

http://www.fastcompany.com/1727292/apple-ipad-officially-pas...

Re: Free Kindle This November

#16

Post by Pyrodogg »

The thing I hate about kindle (hardware) being a loss leader is that it requires Amazon to keep it locked down so that you can ONLY buy content through them.

I'd rather pay for it up-front and actually have an open e-book market on the back end. As opposed to having to root/jailbreak it and/or go through painful file conversion processes to read other e-books.

Re: Free Kindle This November

#17

Post by qcassidy »

jerf wrote: post #14
gcheong wrote: post #8

How does paying $80/year make something "free"?

There are a number of ways to get Prime for essentially-free or even straight-up free. Students can get it free for a year [1], and Amazon Mom [2] provides it essentially free for parents of young children. You have to buy $25/month of qualifying goods, but we have not found this to be a challenge if you're still on diapers. (And Amazon is quite competitive on diapers.) YMMV. It seems to me that Amazon is desperate f…

Note that Amazon's new free movie/TV-streaming service for Prime members isn't available to Amazon Student or Amazon Mom customers unless they pony up the annual $79 fee:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_...

So students and moms probably won't get Kindles for "essentially-free or even straight-up free."

Re: Free Kindle This November

#18

Post by 0xEA »

6ren wrote: post #4

Makes sense. Like game consoles, they make the money on the content. But, unlike consoles, provided a kindle doesn't need the latest, fastest technology, they can keep getting cheaper, til it's negligible relative to the benefits of acquiring a customer.

To note, they don't care to make money on the device, thats why you can read your kindle books on Android, iPhone, PC, etc.

Re: Free Kindle This November

#19

Post by burgerbrain »

baddox wrote: post #12
burgerbrain wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 40USD off. That's what, 2 pizzas and sixpack? Pretty damn close if you ask me.

It's also 40% off.

Alternatively: The kindle 2 was what, 300USD? I think that's about what it sold for the majority of the time it was released.

So a reduction from 300 to 100 is 66% off, while a reduction from 300 to 140 is a little bit over 50% off. If your guess is 66% off and actual is on the high end of 50%, that's not a bad guess in my book.

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