I have the Kindle that is one version before the Kindle Touch, with a keyboard in the bottom.
I purchased it thinking I would save money: instead of getting physical books, I would get ebooks, which OUGHT to be MUCH cheaper.
Almost all, if not all, books nowadays are digitized before being published. Even if the author writes by hand, someone types the book in a computer. To convert this digital file to amazon.com’s proprietary ebook format (or a pdf, or any other format) is a relatively simple (i.e. cheap) process. It follows that an ebook’s production and storage costs are MUCH lower than the cost of printing and binding a book, plus the shipping to amazon.com’s warehouse, and storing it there until sold.
Therefore, when I see ebooks priced at almost the same as paperback editions, sometimes even MORE expensive, I feel ripped off.
It reminds me of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty: “Well honey, that’s just nuts.”
I know it’s a nascent industry, that ebooks are not standardized, that we are locked into our e-readers, and that, as good business managers, amazon.com’s executives have to get as much profit as possible out of the markets.
If you live in a country where the cost of shipping, and possibly an import tax, is significant, then the Kindle is advantageous. Otherwise, it can be justified by its practicality – by not having to carry around a stack of books, or a heavy book – and what else?
