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Re: [PLUG] The Amazon Kindle
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On Wed, Nov 21, 2007 at 08:23:47PM -0500, Matthew Rosewarne wrote:
> On Wednesday 21 November 2007, JP Vossen wrote:
> > The DRM is a Bad Thing, but I wonder if it's realistic to think that a
> > non-DRM device would gain any acceptance from the big publishing
> > players. But obviously Amazon has the clout to force them to play for
> > now, then maybe back off on the DRM later ala Amazon DRM-less
> > MP3_Downloads. And it turns out the Amazon remembers what Kindle
> > e-books you've paid for and you can re-download them at any time. It
> > also sounds like you can connect it to a PC (though this is never
> > required for anything) to back stuff up.
>
> It doesn't really make sense that Amazon would push against DRM if they can
> make money selling DRM'd content. If you buy their product with DRM, what
> incentive is there for Amazon to fight it?
For the same reason Apple is. Observe:
Step 1: You provide a service that the existing industry can't/won't
provide but that customers really want. You will have to make concessions
to the original media owners in order to get this off the ground, e.g.
DRM and draconian licensing.
Step 2: You start pushing tons of their product with your slick hardware
and easy-to-use, reasonably-priced (at least for middle class+) service
coupled with the device. You make *damn sure* that your service only works
with your device, but only people like us give a shit about stuff like
that anyway. The public eats it up and meanwhile, your media partners
never suspect that they are growing increasingly more reliant on your
hardware/service combo for their future.
Step 3: You're now bringing in so much revenue for the media suppliers
that they have no choice but to deal with you. Supporting all this DRM on
your hardware is a pain in the balls: it costs you an extra chip per unit,
more manpower, more support calls, etc. You'd like to drop it to save
money per unit and increase profits. So, you strongarm the media guys who
can't say no anyway into giving you DRM-free shit. Oh yeah, and you can
now call it "premium" content and raise the price on us, since you know
we'll just pay it anyway and eventually that will be the new default
price.
Economics, people. Economics.
> > I've also seen bits about it being possible to sync over (via USB or
> > $0.10 email) plain text (and other formats in more steps), so The Baen
> > Free Library, Project Gutenberg(.org), Google Books and more would then
> > be accessible.
Oh yeah, and my Ansel Adams collections will also look awesome in ASCII
art. Good thing I have that ASCII art pr0n collection left over from the
days of the ribboned line printers.
> From what I've seen, it doesn't do PDFs. I'm not sure how you could call it a
> book reader if it doesn't read one of the most common publishing formats in
> the world.
+10000000000. I'm going on record as saying I already bought an eBook
reader that displays PDFs. They call it an 'iPhone'.
> It's also an 800x600 screen. For $400, why not buy yourself a refurbished
> laptop instead? That would be far more useful than any locked-down eBook
> device.
Battery? Battery. Battery!
Malkovich.
--
Toby DiPasquale
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