Friday, August 6, 2010

Amazon.com: KINDLE, now only $0.75

E-readers are the future (or so I'm told). As a writer, I'm a little bummed at the idea of owning digital files as opposed to a physical book that I can put up on my shelf. On the other hand, modern books are made pretty cheaply and don't last "forever" like older books.

So maybe digital files are the way to go. I don't know.

What I do know is, Amazon.com's Kindle is the leading e-book reader on the market. The only other reader I can think of (besides the iPAD, which does so much more I don't think of it as an e-reader) is the Nook (Barnes & Noble's in-house e-reader).

The Kindle seems to be doing for e-books what Apple's iPOD did for MP3's. And much like Apple's fantastically successful music player, the Kindle keeps getting updates/upgrades. It seems like every time I log into Amazon.com I'm informed of some new-and-improved version of the Kindle (which I can PRE-ORDER NOW!).

As annoying as that is (why should I buy something that will be better in a few months?) what's even MORE annoying are the near daily emails I get regarding the PRICE of the Kindle. I wake up, take a shower, and then I go into my office and check my email. Usually I have about three to five emails every morning. One is from Groupon (a daily online coupon/deal-of-the-day), one from Careerbuilder.com (from my unemployed days), one is from 1-800-flowers (because I like to send flowers), and finally I have between one to two emails from Amazon.com.

Now, I realize that I could unsubscribe from all of these daily emails/spam. But I'm lazy. And I like getting mail (sorry, I'm lame). The Amazon.com and the Groupon emails have the potential to actually be useful to me, so I wouldn't want to opt out of either of them of anyway.

BUT, the Amazon.com emails are annoying because it seems like once a week I'm told that the Kindle has dropped in price.

"Amazon.com: KINDLE now only $139!"

It seems that the price of this thing is constantly dropping, to quote Mr. Dogg, like "it's hot." I imagine a day will come where I'll wake up and see that the Kindle has dropped in price so much, that'll it'll be free (and on it's way to my house!).

I remember there was some controversy surrounding the release of the last iPhone when the price dropped dramatically just after the product's launch. I'm sure there's a very good, sound economical reason for lowering the price of high-end consumer electronics shortly after the product comes out...but I don't get it.

"Amazon.com: KINDLE now only $0.00 (we took the initiative and just mailed you one, Jason...you're welcome)!!!"

2 comments:

Michael said...

I, too, have a hard time imagining a time when physical books are no longer a reality (or at least have become a minority). There's nothing that comes close to the feel of a book in your hands, even if some e-readers can do all sorts of crazy shenanigans like integrated audio and video.

(And I like getting emails too, even if they are from retailers trying to sell me things...)

Dr. Jason said...

Yeah, like right now...I need to reread my second novel and re-tool the ending.

But I can't get myself to read the damn thing on my laptop. I just can't read a long novel on a computer screen.

Ugh. The future is going to suck for me.