Re: future of the Amazon Kindle

At 8:40 PM +0000 4/22/08, Rob Preece wrote:
>I think Amazon believes that it has to make the Kindle work.
>Ultimately, with increasing fuel costs, a model of shipping individual
>paper books to homes has got to fail.


Perhaps I'm making the same point you are and nit-picking what you are trying to say, but no, it isn't rising fuel costs that will stop shipping individual paper books to homes (if anything will do it -- I suspect that there will always be some paper books made, just like there are still people riding horses and walking to get around).

Fuel costs can slow market growth or maybe shrink the market somewhat, but only because they increase the effective price of a book.

There will still be some kind of demand for books in some kind of format (paperback, hardcover, ebook, etc.), regardless of what happens to fuel prices, or any other component in the manufacture and delivery of books.

If anything will do what you suggest, it is a successful model for selling books digitally (ebooks).

It is the competition from ebooks that will make the difference, if anything, not rising fuel prices. Without a successful ebook alternative, rising fuel prices will just mean rising book prices, nothing more.


Kent


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