Amazon.com caved to publishers and will raise prices for e-books designed for its Kindle e-reader,
Macmillan, the big publisher, argued that Amazon was selling books for below cost and demanded that the online retailer raise prices to $15. Amazon at first retaliated by pulling Macmillan titles from its site, then said it would concede to the demand.
If Amazon does indeed raise its prices, then it needs to rethink the Kindle entirely and loosen its digital rights management stranglehold on the reader’s content. Right now, Kindle readers pay a low price for books that cannot be easily shared with or passed along to others.
If Kindle raises its prices, readers will get not-so-inexpensive books — close in price to deeply discounted new titles in bookstores and places like Target and Wal-Mart — that cannot easily be shared with or passed along to others. The higher prices will come on top of the $259 price tag for the Kindle device itself.
The first scenario includes a trade-off that people clearly are willing to make. The second takes from consumers, but doesn’t give.
Amazon, if it concedes to publishers, needs to find new reasons to make the Kindle attractive to a mass audience. The existing model, with higher content prices layered on top, just doesn’t cut it.
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on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 5:53 am and is filed under Commentary, Miscellaneous.
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Amazon’s choice
Amazon.com caved to publishers and will raise prices for e-books designed for its Kindle e-reader,
Macmillan, the big publisher, argued that Amazon was selling books for below cost and demanded that the online retailer raise prices to $15. Amazon at first retaliated by pulling Macmillan titles from its site, then said it would concede to the demand.
If Amazon does indeed raise its prices, then it needs to rethink the Kindle entirely and loosen its digital rights management stranglehold on the reader’s content. Right now, Kindle readers pay a low price for books that cannot be easily shared with or passed along to others.
If Kindle raises its prices, readers will get not-so-inexpensive books — close in price to deeply discounted new titles in bookstores and places like Target and Wal-Mart — that cannot easily be shared with or passed along to others. The higher prices will come on top of the $259 price tag for the Kindle device itself.
The first scenario includes a trade-off that people clearly are willing to make. The second takes from consumers, but doesn’t give.
Amazon, if it concedes to publishers, needs to find new reasons to make the Kindle attractive to a mass audience. The existing model, with higher content prices layered on top, just doesn’t cut it.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 5:53 am and is filed under Commentary, Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.