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Comment by xxpor | Hacker News Reader

ctrl+f whispernet 0 results found

He's forgetting about the cost of delivering over a cell phone network.

If you actually read the article you'll see that he addresses this and that it applies to wifi purchases.

But there's no difference from amazon's perspective, because once you bought the book, you can download it over 3g at any time, multiple times.

There is no way that the average purchase costs $2.50+ to deliver, even amortized over the lifetime of the book.

Amazon can charge whatever they want; I just think they should be transparent about what people's net pay will be. It's disingenuous to advertise that you take a 30% cut plus "delivery costs," and then mark up the "delivery costs" to over 25% of the average book price. Apple uses a similar paradigm (processing fees do not come from their 30%), but they only deduct the actual processing fees.

Maybe kindles are manufactured at a loss and these delivery fees are then part of the device cost?

But that's not a "delivery fee", which makes it kind of dishonest. Amazon already take a fixed 30% cut, which ought to include any subsidy on the devices.

What does Apple typically charge in processing fees on top of their 30%? I’ve tried to find some information on this, and every source I’ve found says they only charge the 30%.

It's 30% plus the payment processing fees. It varies because Apple is clever about charging multiple purchases at once (which works to your benefit), but it's closely in line with processing PayPal, SimplePay, etc.

Looks like your ctrl+f isn't working.

Over a cell phone network a user would pay about $0.27 to download a 18MB file. There is no way an author should have to pay an order of magnitude more.

What if you have a US kindle in say, the deserts of Australia? It's going to cost a LOT more than $.27. I mean a LOT.

Wrong - most deserts of Australia don't have any 3G access. But anywhere in Australia with 3G access (i.e. populated areas) all have the same data tariff, which is comparable to the US price.

>But anywhere in Australia with 3G access (i.e. populated areas) all have the same data tariff, which is comparable to the US price

How do you know the details of AT&T's roaming agreements with Australian carriers?

I know you don't, because your statement is 1000% incorrect.

I would assume Amazon can negotiate with local carriers in each region, rather than paying through a US carrier for data sent to Australia.

That would require a magical sim swap while the kindle is in transit.

Where did you read that? On my reading of the terms (and being an AU resident) I'm pretty sure whisper net doesn't exist in Australia.

Which would also suggest you don't get charged a delivery fee to AU customers..?

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A29FL26O...

3g charges can be pretty hefty...

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