On the Kindles, the ads aren’t intrusive, and if you get an ad model and change your mind later, you can just pay the difference and get the ads removed. So it’s not much of a risk to just get the ads.
This is the first time I have heard this... you would think they would market that ability more.
Kindle is dangerously close to having too many models. Customers are becoming confused. I was at a Best Buy and I overheard a couple looking at a Kindle. This Best Buy seemed to only have the Special Offers models. The couple was asking for the ad-free version, and the employee wasn't giving them a sure answer. He thought that after you buy the Special Offers version it would ask you if you wanted to remove them for the addition $30. I'm a super nerd and even I don't know if that is true (I suspect not).
There are a couple of problems here: Amazon is allowing retailers to carry part of the line. Radio Shack has even fewer choices (mine didn't have the Touch at all). But worse, they have too many choices, and the retailers aren't able to (or are failing at) educate their employees on the devices. That couple I saw is going to be pissed if they take the device home and aren't able to remove the ads.
On the flip side, it encourages people to just buy from Amazon.com where you know what you're getting.
Unrelated to the Kindle, but regarding too many models - I wanted to get a new Dremel tool last week and looked online, but for the life of me I can't figure out what the difference is between all of them and their site is terrible at comparing models. Because of that I stopped looking for one and just realized why when I read your comment.
> you would think they would market that ability more
Maybe Amazon thinks that if it is obvious, no one will pay up front to have ads removed, and getting more money at the time of purchase is more valuable than future ad revenue.
Everything on the web points to the opposite. Ads in the long run are always more profitable.
Besides, nothing guarantees that the quality of the ads will stay the same. When I bought my Kindle 4 I reasoned they looked well now because the service is pretty new, but we'll start seeing all the abhorring ads we see on the web soon enough.
I would be stunned if the lifetime advertising revenue from a Kindle unit was higher than the price to turn the ads off. Isn't it much more likely to be purely a market segmentation thing? Sell the cheap version to the extremely price-sensitive, but get an extra $30 from those who don't really care about the price.
This is the first time I have heard this... you would think they would market that ability more.