Would I use a free Kindle?

Michael Arrington writes this morning that Amazon is looking for ways to give free Kindles to all Amazon prime users:

In January Amazon offered select customers a free Kindle of sorts – they had to pay for it, but if they didn’t like it they could get a full refund and keep the device. It turns out that was just a test run for a much more ambitious program. A reliable source tells us Amazon wants to give a free Kindle to every subscriber.

I've been a happy Amazon prime member since the day they launched the program (and an Amazon customer dating back to almost the day they launched Amazon). I'm also increasingly getting sick of owning useless atoms — and I'd certainly put most of the books I've bought into that category. I don't need to buy more things that I'll use for a few days and then put on a bookshelf for the next few decades. So in theory, I should be thrilled with this offer and in fact, should have already bought a Kindle myself.

But I don't know... there's something about it that still just doesn't feel right to me. Most of my heavy reading friends love theirs (I'm looking at you Sippey). I'm buying an iPad as soon as it comes out and can see applications for it in my life all over the place. And hey, I'll happily take a free device I didn't want any time. But for some reason, I just don't see myself lustily opening that free Kindle and gleefully downloading away.

Not that I won't try, mind you. Jeff... you have my address.

Comments

[Michael Sippey]

My book buying habits aren't necessarily lusty, but now just more "on demand." Done with one book, pick up the next *right now*. I've shifted the bulk book buying I used to do on Amazon to the device... But frankly, they do a really lousy job of merchandising titles through the Kindle's on-device store -- it's a seriously crappy shopping experience.

Which makes me wonder just what the heck they're doing. This just feels like a combination of iPad fear an unnatural love for his own device on the part of Bezos. Assuming that Apple doesn't lock them (and Stanza and all the other one off ebook sellers in the app store) out of the iPad because of the iBookstore, presumably they'll have a great Kindle.app for the iPad, just like they do for the iPhone. Sure, the Kindle's probably a better reading experience *outside*, but unless they're sitting on some massive amount of inventory that they don't want to have to write down completely, or are thinking about their Spint data deal in the wrong way (sunk costs, anyone?) I just don't get this.

I'm not saying that they should exit the business, mind you, but that they should just rightsize it, make the product better, and realize that Kindle as a service brand will have a longer shelf life* than Kindle as a product brand. Amazon should look at the iPad and scream "holy crap, this is awesome -- we can have a much better selling experience on the device than we can with our slow, non-responsive black-on-gray reflective screen device. Hooray!" Instead, Bezos just wants to be Jobs.

* Pun fully intended.

[Andrew Anker]

Totally agree that this feels a bit too much like Jobs envy on Bezos's part. But not sure I'm with you on Kindle should be a service... but mostly for the same reason that iTunes shouldn't be a service: I don't want DRM around my shit. If you want to rent me a book like NetFlix rents me a DVD, then fine but charge me much less per item or a flat rate per month or something that feels like a rental service. But I just don't feel like paying for something on an ownership basis when you've wrapped a bunch of DRM and can take it back any time (or limit my ability to take it anywhere).

Which is obviously different from why I don't specifically think I'll use a Kindle and why I wrote the post. But it's also not unrelated.