Kindle 2.0: Friend or Fraud?

As detailed previously in this space, digital publishing will emerge, it's just a matter of when it does and what it will look like. I'm betting the new Kindle 2.0 won't be the final form.

According to this review in Information Week, the new Kindle is a thing of beauty. Other coverage says it's about a third of an inch thick, can accommodate 1,500 books, and holds a charge for two weeks. At $359, it's a lot of cool. But $359 is a lot of money just to read books.

And, as the review notes, the books you can read on the Kindle have a proprietary format that you can only buy from Amazon. Because you can't go elseware for your Kindle books, Amazon can charge more for them. And does.

When Major League Baseball tried to deal with the media age that dawned with cheap, available radio, it ran away from it at first. After all, if people could listen to the game on the radio, why would they buy tickets and go? As time went on, teams grudgingly broadcast road games. Then, eventually, they broadcast home games, as well. Although at first, the games didn't bring a lot of revenue, they built interest and actually helped the attendance. Ask any Dodgers fan from the seventies and they'll tell you about sitting at Dodger Stadium listening to Vin Scully on their transistor radio.

Amazon should consider this model in selling its Kindle hardware. In this time of economic uncertainty and half a million layoffs a month, it's hard to justify paying more than $300 for hardware that does only one thing. I can get a low-end laptop for not much more, or a phone that does everything except make a sandwich for me.

I'd be much more inclined to buy a Kindle if I could get books for less than five dollars for older paperbacks, and less than ten dollars for new best sellers. As the Kindle and other e-readers mature, prices will come down. And when they do, buying habits will already be established. Forcing people to buy Kindle content from Amazon will drive people away, especially when someone comes out with a lower-cost alternative.

My prediction is that the cost of the hardware will fall considerably, and most people will get their e-readers when they sign up for a subscription to buy a specified number of books over a specified amount of time.

The only question, really, is how long it'll take to get there.