
Ten Quick Reasons the Kindle Will Fail - transburgh
http://www.centernetworks.com/amazon-kindle-ten-quick-reasons
======
andreyf
I don't get it. My books work fine now... what are they trying to fix?

I can get a new one shipped overnight ($4 with Amazon Prime) if I really want
it, or head down the street and get it from B&N now if I _really_ want it. If
I hear of a good book, I don't really have a burning desire start reading it
instantly. So the value added by instant delivery isn't much.

Having all of the books I own in my back pocket... what's the point? First -
value added by having a bookshelf full of books is non-trivial. Bookshelves
make for great conversation. A lot of times when friends are over, we just sit
by the bookshelf and talk about whatever book catches our interest. I can't
imagine the experience being quite the same scrolling through each other's
Kindles. Second - I don't need all of the books I own in my back pocket. I
just need the one I am reading now, maybe two. A book takes days to read,
which is fundamentally different from music. The newGadget:books::iPod:music
analogy is flawed - having all of your music in your pocket has a lot of
value; books - not so much.

And last (to kick a dead horse) - sharing is essential. Say I'm visiting a
friend who is upset. On my way over, I buy her a book to help her feel better.
"I got you the rights to download this book" is never going to quite have the
oomph that an actual book will. In general, most of the books I buy for people
are presents. Same point.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Books are heavy, bulky and impossible to grep.

I can heft a small box packed full of paperbacks if I grunt and strain, but I
can balance thousands of of e-books on my pinky finger. That means I can tote
them around and have them all available when I want them. I'm no longer tied
to the physical facilities close at hand.

> Bookshelves make for great conversation.

So does a horse and buggy.

~~~
plinkplonk
It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. I would like to have a
bookshelf of paper books _and_ electronic copies on a reader. The one for
reading in traditional fashion and the other for reading on a plane/ train
etc.

Owning two types of cars (or a car and a motorcycle) maybe a more helpful
metaphor than horse and buggy vs car. The Pragmatic Programmers release all
their books as non drm-ed pdfs and you can buy both the electronic copy and
the pdf if you choose. They seem to do well.

But yes, the kindle is very underwhelming, I'll for a better reader without
DRM (or at least hackable DRM).

~~~
JulianMorrison
Personally I really don't see much value in paper at all. Beyond romanticizing
the medium, what do you gain? Every objection I've heard of (readability,
battery life, etc) is just a transient technological phase. DRM is horrid, but
it's no more a natural feature of e-books than NDAs are a natural feature of
paper.

The whole romance of paper thing reminds me of the romance of film. Didn't
slow the digital camera one iota.

~~~
mechanical_fish
Yes, but pro photographers didn't abandon film in the mid-1990s when the
640-by-480 Apple Quicktake Camera came out. They waited for a digital product
that didn't suck.

Paper book readers are still waiting. It's been a long wait, and the end is
not yet in sight. From what I've read so far, the Quicktake was better at
being a camera than the Kindle is at being a book: You had the option to
photograph whatever you wanted, you weren't charged by the frame, you didn't
need to read an FAQ in order to figure out how to press the shutter release,
your pictures weren't invisibly sent to a corporate database to be mined for
data, and the cameras presumably continue to work even though the bureaucracy
that spawned them has long since lost interest in them.

~~~
marvin
Again, these are all transistent issues. All it takes is for one team to get
its act together and make something that actually doesn't suck.

There are no technical barriers for the electronic book to overcome. It's all
politics. And ass-hats.

------
gills
I read most books on paper. Simply put, the kindle won't change that, and will
probably reinforce it.

This could be useful if it were given freely to students and loaded with
required reading by the school, but the cost would have to come in
significantly below OLPC.

Even then, I feel like Amazon is late to the party, and at the wrong address
anyway. The trend is moving away from stovepiped single-purpose devices and
towards multi-function mobile devices. I'll wait for the next round of phone-
camera-media-browser-dishwasher-espresso-cart-robot-lackey to include an eBook
plugin. Speaking of that, which reader of this site is already at work
building an eBook reader for Android?

------
shimonrura
The main reason this will fail is that its pricing model is ridiculous. You'd
have to read a lot of books for this to be worth the cost, especially
considering that the books they're selling now -- bestsellers and popular
stuff -- are already available just about everywhere to begin with.

I think it would sell better if they bundled a contract-term subscription and
cut the up-front price, like carriers do with cell phones. If the reader were
$129 with a $10/mo subscription, and included a bunch of stuff -- say a free
book and up to 20 blogs per month -- I think more people would consider it.

------
davidw
I love my print books, but having all my books electronic would have saved me
lots of money over the years, as I've hauled them back and forth over the
Atlantic several times....sigh.

------
inovica
I bought an iphone which is the first pda-sized 'thing' I've ever had. I've
found myself reading blogs and even a few chapters of a Python ebook on there
(PDF) so whilst I love to sit and read a book I'd be very happy to do so on a
device. However, its damn ugly and I'd want it to at least look cool if I'm
going to be sitting using it in a cafe!

------
tocomment
Why can't an iphone function as an ebook reader? Is it just too small?

~~~
far33d
It emits light, strains the eyes, and uses a lot of power.

------
sammyo
I for one am waiting for the gReader.

------
tokipin
i think if the screen was writonable they'd have something

