Thursday, October 15, 2009

"Amazon Extends Kindle Beyond United States"

Amazon Extends Kindle Beyond United States, TidBITS article.
"The pricing for newspapers is surprising as well. The New York Times, sold in the United States to Kindle users for $13.99 a month, costs $27.99 here in Europe. Even the International Herald Tribune, which is actually published in France, is more expensive here: $9.99 in the United States compared to $19.99 for Europe.
There's no reason to charge twice as much for European customers; after all, one of the Internet's major advantages is that distance doesn't matter. I thought newspapers were trying to survive, but if the Kindle is their big chance, it looks like they're going to blow it."

No kidding. Even without daily reading, fourteen dollars per month is a reasonable price per month for getting the NYT digitally... but almost thirty dollars? You have to have a good reason for spending that.

2 comments:

Chris S. said...

These people are hopelessly stuck in old world views. Instead of seeing the whole world as their market for $13 they're chasing a "select" clientele for $30+. StupidThink is exactly why they're dinosaurs in the cyberworld. People used to accept a higher fee because of extra postage/delivery costs but here they can obviously see that they're being ripped.

Besides, anyone with a bit of tech ability can access through a proxy as though they were in the US. Just stupid and good riddance to them. I don't like their filtering and manipulation of the news anyway.

Kabel Yaache said...

Has nothing to do with cost or expense of delivery. The premise is that BECAUSE you live in the UK - or even elsewhere, you are permitted to pay more for the pure, distilled privilege of reading the NYT's content.

And if you really don't like the news, Chrissy S. - make your own, do it all yourself. - Burmashave!