[FoRK] Re: Kindle first impressions

[Jeff Bone]

On May 5, 2008, at 12:53 PM, Jeff Bone wrote:
>
> On May 5, 2008, at 12:04 PM, Tom Higgins wrote:
>
>> So 400$ gets me
>
> For me --- instant gratification from Amazon for (many) books.   
> That's it.  And for me, that's worth it.  YMMV...

Let me put this slightly differently.  Imagine Amazon was offering a  
magical "shipment by teleportation" service at a premium (say, oh, a  
one-time lifetime subscription fee of $400) to its customers and you  
could take delivery of some but not all of your book orders via that  
instantaneous mechanism --- One-Click and *pop!* the book appears  
beside you on your desk, immediately.  Imagine further as a side- 
effect of that service any books thusly shipped could only be owned by  
you and nobody else, any attempt to resell would cause the book to  
teleport "home" to Amazon, thus preventing you from reselling...

Sure as shit I'd pay that, hell yes, in a second.  I spend enough  
money at Amazon, and time waiting on Amazon deliveries, that the above  
restrictions in no way reduce the net attractiveness of the offer.   
Bring on the magical shipment via teleport.  Hell, even if the price  
included "...and your eternal soul" I might consider it!

This is no different.  Bugger the device, it's the instant  
gratification that's worth $400 to me.  We get all wrapped around the  
axel of technology politics and fail to see the application, and this  
particular application *saves me time* and *delivers me information*  
more efficiently than I currently receive it, from the very place that  
I'm going to anyway in order to get said information.  That might not  
be worth $400 to you, but it is to me.

jb