Amazon.com to Sell Kindle Digital Reader With Ads for $114 | Hacker News Reader

Amazon.com to Sell Kindle Digital Reader With Ads for $114

businessweek.com

36 pointsssclafani26 comments

I want to preface these comments by saying that I don't yet own a Kindle. It seems to me that the savings offered don't equal the annoyance factor of seeing ads. If the price was $49 I would probably run out and buy one just to experiment with digital books.

Most of the people I know who have Kindles use them to read fiction or business best sellers. If that's what I primarily consumed I'd have had one by now. Anyone on here buying all their tech books on a Kindle?

I'm surprised by the price as well - I'd have thought that with ads it would be much lower. Guess not.

Reading tech or any material that could be considered educational might be difficult, as it's oftentimes necessary to switch back and forth between pages to look things up again.

There's some issues with the ads. It may be a difficult sell in that there's only limited chance for a user to click through an ad - I notice a lot of the launch advertisers are the kind who do "branding campaigns" where they don't worry amount click-through. So that may push down CPM.

Also, the number of ads users see may be fairly limited since it's only on the powerdown screen and index - a typical Kindle user might only average 1-2 ads per day. If they're viewing 1,000 ads per year, that's only worth a few bucks at typical CPMs, and you have to figure they only expect a device being used that much to last 2-3 years.

So a $25 discount seems pretty generous in that light.

(Me, I'd happily accept some small ads at the bottom of the reading page if it pushed the price under $100. We put up with it in magazines and newspapers all the time.)

If they find they make more money than they expected, you'll see $50 off by Christmas. They're probably just testing the idea, and went with a safe discount.

All the Pragmatic Programmer books come with Kindle versions. I also have a peer who wishes he had a kindle 20 years ago. His bookshelf would be empty.

I own a kindle, and I buy a lot of technical ebooks, but I don't tend to read them on the kindle device itself. The screen is too small for code or fixed width tables to display well.

So I read the tech stuff on my iPad and use the kindle for long sessions reading fiction, where the content is much more reflow-friendly.

This is an easy way for Amazon to start measuring the elasticity of demand for advertising. This will allow them to properly price advertising in the future. I wouldn't buy one, but this is a great idea.

Now if only Amazon allowed the public to see Kindle sales figures...

>The company worked with advertisers to ensure the ads don’t get in the way of reading, he said. Ads will appear as a screen saver when the Kindle is idle. They will also be seen as a banner on the bottom of the screen on a user’s home page, Marine said.

That's not too bad, I'll admit. Though I do find the idea of pulling out my Kindle and seeing an ad on the screen somewhat distasteful.

Certainly $25-distasteful. I'm with others here, if it were dramatically lower, I'd probably run out and buy one. Especially if there were an upgrade path (pay difference, lose ads). For $25 off a >$100 item though, no way.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. It seems to shoot down (or at least delay) the idea of free Kindles at the end of 2011.

I just bought a Kindle 3 Wi-Fi. I'd just rather plunk down the $20 extra for an ad-less version. I want less things distracting and potentially watching me, not more. And I'm willing to pay for that privilege.

Wonder if they have anything in place to stop people flashing the existing K3 firmware which is ad-free.

There's also existing hacks out their to customise the screensavers, wonder if they've patched this else people would be able to avoid the ads.

Along similar lines, I wonder if you'll be able to pay for an upgrade later to an ad-free firmware.

I doubt they care all that much. Most people with $110 to spend and the know-how to hack a Kindle probably wouldn't consider it worth the time just to save $25. For those who do consider it worth the time, Amazon would probably rather they have a hacked Kindle than no Kindle at all.

That being said, I think each Kindle has some soft of hardware ID. If a Kindle sold as ad-supported suddenly stops requesting ads that would probably indicate its hacked. Of course there are a few obvious ways around that, but that tends to be true of any solution short of completely locked down hardware.

Sounds kind of pointless... the kind of people who can spent at least $120 on an e-reader (and by extension the $8-$15 it costs per book that isn't even a touchable/sharable thing) are probably the kinds of people who can afford another $25 to get the full version. Now if this was being sold for free, or for $50, that would be a different story.

There is speculation that the Kindle will be eventually free.

Prior HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2266193 Updated projection I made today: http://www.rexfeng.com/blog/?p=945

Based on the HN discussion link, the Kindle may be free after Nov 2011. Taking into account today's price drop, my updated projection shows it taking longer - after Feb 2012.

I probably would buy one of these, if I hadn't already bought a Kindle a month ago.

I spend hours with my Kindle, but only a few minutes on the home screen. I keep the device in a case and I couldn't tell you what "screensaver" images it displays on standby. In other words, I probably wouldn't even notice the ads, and I'd save $25 on the device.

I see this as a purely defensive stance should they want to enable in-app purchases in the future.

As Apple has discovered, they get accused of being greedy when they force developers to go through the app store for In-App purchases.

Perhaps Amazon, by clearly indicating that this device is subsidized by future sales (ads, in this case), makes it easier for them to explain to the customer why they'd like more control over the device. (i.e. the customer doesn't completely own the device).

> the customer doesn't completely own the device

Is this legally possible? (Except for the obvious software part)

You made me think again. Thanks.

There are a few ways Amazon can go with this:

1. They have a non-legal but persuasive claim that the unit was subsidized and the sale of the unit might include shrink wrap rules against tampering against the advertising module (and a wide claim on all other modules/business models).

2. Even when the open source community will eventually work out how to circumvent it, Amazon might hope that people would rather not void their warranty etc.

3. #1 is not entirely settled and is still in litigation (see http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118005513?refCatId=14)

I wonder if you'll be able to remove the ads later - like if you get the version with ads you can remove them by buying amazon prime later on or something.

A $20 discount isn't enough for us, but as the woman quoted in the article said anytime they lower the price they get a surge. So they do $20 now, get some brands on board, get some user feedback, iron a few kinks out, then do a firmware update and drop the price another $15. The $99 ad-supported kindle will sell like hotcakes.

I wonder if ads will be specific to what you have on your Kindle or (even scarier) what you have purchased at Amazon.com.

This also brings up an interesting question; what you read on your kindle, is it as ad-worthy as what you read online?

I wonder if ads will be specific to what you have on your Kindle or (even scarier) what you have purchased at Amazon.com.

Why is this scary? Amazon has been offering recommendations based on your purchases for what seems like decades.

Right, I wouldn't mind the first option. I'd almost expect it, but there is something about giving me ads from things completely unrelated to books that gets me.

Not that it's a big deal; I will not be using this option. Just wanted to make a point of concern for when a website over-reaches its verticals.

$20 discount only?!... hope they keep the ads to the screen saver.

They do apply to the screensaver/home screen only. I think the discount is still way too low, though.

Are they really sure the people they want to advertise to are those who would accept having ads pushed to them in exchange for saving only 20 bucks?

To be clear, I'm not making a judgement call on such people, I'm just wondering how great of an advertising demographic they are.

They're the perfect demographic. Keep in mind the ads being pushed are in the form of promotions based on the examples Amazon is giving, for um, this promotion.

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