Kindle Naysayer
From Zanecorpwiki
On the May 8, 2009 edition of On the Media (TODO: link), Paul Saffo was quoted as saying, The Kindle will do to books what the iPod did music, and then, speaking on the Kindle DX, The Kindle will do to the magazine what the iPod did to music.
Err... huh? Don't get me wrong, I believe that eBook readers (or devices that incorporate those capabilities) will do what Saffo says (though that's no great leap), but the Kindle? I don't buy it.
First off, the Kindle has been nothing like the iPhone in any way, despite the pundits endless claims to the contrary. The week the iPhone first came out, I saw dozens in the wild. In the 18 months since the Kindle's been out, I've seen exactly one in the wild, and I know one friend who bought one. To be fair, both owners really like them, but then again most people that owned the Apple Newton really liked them too.
Amazon won't release Kindle sales figures which means one things: they're terrible. There's nothing wrong with the Kindle but comparing it the iPhone was always naive, continuing to compare it to the iPhone is delusional at best and disingenuous at worst.ref group=notesBy this I mean that the only reason I can think of why smart people would talk about the Kindle the way they do, as some kind of game changer, is because Amazon is paying them too. Again, don't get me wrong. I love Amazon, but they're certainly not above trying to create an impression of gloss and success where none actually exists./ref
When confronted with the Kindle's limited abilities, Saffo (and others) respond that the Kindle fills this vital niche between the iPhone and the laptop. You need something a little bigger, but still not a laptop. Totally... I buy tablet computing, and small tablet makes a lot more sense (to me) that laptop tablet.ref group=notesNot that you can't have both, but how will tablets get big? My prediction is the small tablet./ref
The problem is that Kindle isn't a small tablet, but Saffo and other's talk like it is. During the interview Saffo makes this incredible and patently false claim that with the Kindle will be a display device for movies.
To give the benefit of the doubt, Saffo at this point in the interview was talking about all screen tablet devices. The Kindle is neither all screen, nor is it a tablet in the normal use of the term. However, it's an interview about the Kindle and he's answering a question on the Kindle so we must assume he's talking about the Kindle and just doesn't really understand what the Kindle is.
What makes the Kindle, and eBook readers in general, special is the way they display the image. A computer screen uses light to produce images. White is produced by full spectrum, all colors on. The eBook readers screen is actually a kind of paper in which ink can be pushed forward so it is visible, or pulled back. Once the ink is placed, it's stable till it's changed again.
You only refresh the page when you change the image. A computer screen, on the other hand, is constantly refreshing... usually about 60 times a second. This means that a eBook can use a small battery that will last days, weeks, or even months. That's what makes it special.
It also means that it is and always will be impractical to watch a movie on an eBook reader. You might as well claim that we'll be watching movies on printers by printing out the individual frames into giant flip books. This analogy is almost flawless.
The Kindle does get some things right--built in wifi, connected to an iTunes like store--but it gets a lot wrong. There are a lot better looking, better performing, and more usable eBook readers out there. Hell, given Kindles most-likely dismal sales, they're are probably better selling eBook readers out there.
What's worse is that Kindle's content is locked in. You can't get the book on your computer, you can't get it on the iPhone, you can't lend it, you can't do anything with it but read it on a Kindle. Amazingly Saffo makes the baseless claim that those growing up with the Kindle will simply accept this and never question a locked in, buy the same content many times regime.
Again, Saffo is talking about a future that goes against the information we have in the now. iTunes locks down music to some extent--most likely because they had to in order to get the labels to sign on--but the sharing policy is liberal enough that you can share it without doing anything special enough so that 95% of users will never notice that it's locked down. Not so with the Kindle.
The problem isn't even so much the content bought for the Kindle, that would be annoying, but not a killer. The problem is that the Kindle is a locked platform. You can't get a PDF on the phone. There's a huge library high quality free PDFs available than there are Kindle eBooks. Check out Project Guthenberg (TODO: link) or any one of the many Creative Commons licensed Sci-Fi books.
Would the iPod have succeeded if you could emonly/em put songs purchased from iTunes on it? If it was impossible to rip your own CDs or put freely licensed music on the device? It may have turned a profit, but it wouldn't have been the phenomenon that makes delusional individuals want to compare their products too. I actually can't think of a single artificially locked platform that's succeeded.ref group=notesArtificially locked means that content would be copy-able if it weren't for arbitrary constraints. This is to distinguish it from naturally locked content, like a DVD, where the size of the content is so massive that transferring it isn't an option even if there weren't artificial barries in the way. The DVD example is now starting to change, but the idea or capacity to rip DVDs is still not a mainstream thing. Also, at the time the market and standard were solidifying it wasn't illegal to copy a DVD for your own use. In that case, I doubt it would have hurt much because of the natural barrier and capabilities of the average system at the time, but still... I can think of no example of a locked platform that's succeeded. One could maybe argue that console games are an example, but in that case the specialized hardware creates an effectively natural barrier. This changes somewhat with the XBox, but I would still call XBox content naturally locked for psychological reasons and in any case, we're now way off topic./ref
If the iPod had been locked down, then another device would now be the iPod, just like another eBook reader is going to be the eBook reader that takes off. The breakthrough device may even be in the Kindle family, but Amazon needs to radically retool aspects of their model. Or, more likely, eBook readers as a group will take off. They will use regular old PDF files and the stores to buy content will probably be legion.
There are things others need to copy from the Kindle, but the Kindle is too ugly and too hobbled to be relevant. If Amazon weren't burning money to push a product no one is buying, we wouldn't even be talking about it. The fact that we are is, in fact, a sign of just how bad the Kindle is doing. It's a failing product that Amazon just can't let go.
The other problem with all this is the idea that eBook readers in general could ever be iPhone like. You can't compare the number of people that consume massive quantities of written material compared to those that listen to music or talk on the phone. The size of the potential markets are vastly different.
I've been watching eBooks since well before they ever came out. I was following the e-ink technology they use when it still existed as a prototype in a lab. I emlove/em the technology and there is 100% I'll get an eBook reader as soon as someone gets it right. That's also why I'm dead certain that the Kindle is not it. With so much of the Kindle booster's reasoning being questionable, if not demonstrably false, I grow only more certain in this conviction.
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