On the Economics of the Kindle

perlow writes "Just how many books a year would you need to read before the cost of Amazon's Kindle is justified? The answer is not so cut-and-dried. If you're a college student and all of your texts were available on Kindle (possible but unlikely), you could recover the cost of the reader in a semester and a half. For consumers to break even with Kindle's cost in that time, they would have to be in the habit of buying and reading four new hardback books per month — if the convenience factor wasn't part of the equation. At two books per month, breakeven would be in three years." Here is the spreadsheet if you want to play with the numbers.

Comments

Re:There is more to it...

[Stormwatch]

There is nothing better than going in the library, firing up a premium cigar or my pipe and doing either some actual real book work-reading of leisurely reading.

Oh, there is something better: reading while not inhaling noxious fumes.

Re:i like the idea of the kindle

[billcopc]

Technical problem: too many damned kids on Slashdot.

Technical answer: cap UIDs at a half-million, punt all the rest, close signups forever.

Amirite?