New shiny Amazon Kindle doesn't replace my old book
Damon Beres
Issue date: 2/20/08 Section: Opinion
Now that people are finally getting their Amazon Kindles in the mail (in addition to other such devices, like the Sony Reader), it's time to reassess whether they should actually want them. Sure, they're the hippest reading devices this side of Teddy Ruxpin, but are we really ready to hurl books out of the window to completely embrace sterile digitalization?
It would be easy to put a hippie spin on the whole situation. Kindle is saving the trees! But I, for one, hate trees. Or rather, I think their sacrifice is for a worthy cause. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I'm going to say that it's nice to hold a book, bend the pages and smell the darn thing. Books have a great aesthetic quality that the Kindle is never going to match. What's it going to do, show different fonts?
"So what?" naysayers will ask. The Kindle sold out over the holiday season, so people are clearly willing to give up the look and feel of a book in favor of a sleek new doohickey. Not to mention that a 10.3-ounce, 0.7-inch deep unit is a bit easier to lug around than the 200 titles it can hold.
But the Kindle has more flaws than meets the eye.
Just as iTunes has crippled the record industry, if the Kindle and digital books catch on, book stores may be next on the chopping block. Presumably, the consumer stands to benefit in this case, as Kindle provides standardized prices, a huge range of titles that will never sell out and utmost convenience.
Yet economics may still have something to say about Amazon's book-killer. If it catches on, mom-and-pop bookstores are ruined, decreasing competition in general and allowing Amazon to all but monopolize the e-book market. We would soon all bend to the totalitarian regime of electronic books and the Kindle's wireless delivery system; every man, woman and child would become a mindless drone wasting away while new issues of The New York Times roll onto the beautiful 6-inch display.
Still, for now, the product doesn't really have the specifications for prime time. It lacks a color display, which limits the capacity for newspaper and blog reading, supposedly major features that seem as though they can be nothing but underutilized. If there's going to be a digital book-reading device, why exclude almost anything that has illustrations? A "Kindle 2" is probably pretty much inevitable, so why release the lesser version to begin with?
Plus, it costs $400 and each book costs $10. I doubt there's really anyone that needs to have 200 books on call at any given time, so the whole thing doesn't really make a lot of economic sense to begin with, especially since used books are generally far cheaper than $10 anyway. It makes sense for an iPod to be able to store zillions of songs because who knows what they're going to want to listen to moment to moment? But it's a pretty slim demographic that gets halfway through a Toni Morrison novel and suddenly gets the craving to switch over to William Burroughs. And, well, if there are people who belong to that elusive group, they can probably manage to have two books on hand as opposed to an unrealistically expensive electronic device.
But the device has one upside: It makes legitimate self-publishing far more attainable.
Amazon allows anyone to upload writing and charge money for it, eliminating the whole nightmare of publishing companies and agents. While I doubt the latest Damon Beres novel is going to rival Stephen King, this function will, at the very least, challenge book publishers in much the same way that blogs challenge magazines and newspapers. Of course, e-books could exist without the Kindle anyway, but it's a nice idea.
As of now, the Kindle is still sold out on Amazon. It's a tempting idea for a number of reasons, but consumers should look at the big picture. The convenience isn't worth it, and there are a host of problems to consider. In the end, it'd be like replacing movie theaters with YouTube - it just doesn't make sense.
Damon Beres is a columnist. E-mail him at opinion@nyunews.com.
It would be easy to put a hippie spin on the whole situation. Kindle is saving the trees! But I, for one, hate trees. Or rather, I think their sacrifice is for a worthy cause. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, I'm going to say that it's nice to hold a book, bend the pages and smell the darn thing. Books have a great aesthetic quality that the Kindle is never going to match. What's it going to do, show different fonts?
"So what?" naysayers will ask. The Kindle sold out over the holiday season, so people are clearly willing to give up the look and feel of a book in favor of a sleek new doohickey. Not to mention that a 10.3-ounce, 0.7-inch deep unit is a bit easier to lug around than the 200 titles it can hold.
But the Kindle has more flaws than meets the eye.
Just as iTunes has crippled the record industry, if the Kindle and digital books catch on, book stores may be next on the chopping block. Presumably, the consumer stands to benefit in this case, as Kindle provides standardized prices, a huge range of titles that will never sell out and utmost convenience.
Yet economics may still have something to say about Amazon's book-killer. If it catches on, mom-and-pop bookstores are ruined, decreasing competition in general and allowing Amazon to all but monopolize the e-book market. We would soon all bend to the totalitarian regime of electronic books and the Kindle's wireless delivery system; every man, woman and child would become a mindless drone wasting away while new issues of The New York Times roll onto the beautiful 6-inch display.
Still, for now, the product doesn't really have the specifications for prime time. It lacks a color display, which limits the capacity for newspaper and blog reading, supposedly major features that seem as though they can be nothing but underutilized. If there's going to be a digital book-reading device, why exclude almost anything that has illustrations? A "Kindle 2" is probably pretty much inevitable, so why release the lesser version to begin with?
Plus, it costs $400 and each book costs $10. I doubt there's really anyone that needs to have 200 books on call at any given time, so the whole thing doesn't really make a lot of economic sense to begin with, especially since used books are generally far cheaper than $10 anyway. It makes sense for an iPod to be able to store zillions of songs because who knows what they're going to want to listen to moment to moment? But it's a pretty slim demographic that gets halfway through a Toni Morrison novel and suddenly gets the craving to switch over to William Burroughs. And, well, if there are people who belong to that elusive group, they can probably manage to have two books on hand as opposed to an unrealistically expensive electronic device.
But the device has one upside: It makes legitimate self-publishing far more attainable.
Amazon allows anyone to upload writing and charge money for it, eliminating the whole nightmare of publishing companies and agents. While I doubt the latest Damon Beres novel is going to rival Stephen King, this function will, at the very least, challenge book publishers in much the same way that blogs challenge magazines and newspapers. Of course, e-books could exist without the Kindle anyway, but it's a nice idea.
As of now, the Kindle is still sold out on Amazon. It's a tempting idea for a number of reasons, but consumers should look at the big picture. The convenience isn't worth it, and there are a host of problems to consider. In the end, it'd be like replacing movie theaters with YouTube - it just doesn't make sense.
Damon Beres is a columnist. E-mail him at opinion@nyunews.com.
Viewing Comments 1 - 5 of 5
Mike
posted 2/20/08 @ 2:25 PM EST
Well, I heard the same sort of arguments from a buddy 7 years ago (or so) about digital cameras and film, and about about pen+paper and word processors before that. (Continued…)
KevinK
posted 2/20/08 @ 8:37 PM EST
Am I the only person who finds books awkward? I'm looking forward to reading books without bending back pages and trying to find a comfortable way to hold it in bed. (Continued…)
Bill
posted 2/21/08 @ 10:37 AM EST
I bought a kindle and I agree, it's very expensive, I do disagree that it is not worth the convenience.
I love to read 2 hours a day at minimum, on weekends I may read for 4 or 6 hours. (Continued…)
Charles Smyth
posted 2/25/08 @ 8:33 AM EST
Kindle is not an expensive device given the extent of the technology provided. Unlike a printed book, Kindle offers search and find, the ability to increase font size, and it is much less burdensome to carry a loaded Kindle than the equivalent in physical, paper form. (Continued…)
CargoJack
posted 3/01/08 @ 9:37 PM EST
Perhaps the Kindle does not make sense to you, but the device is perfect for those books which you want to read, but really do not want to keep. I own about 4,000 books, most of which are old, academic texts which I keep because of their aesthetic beauty or as reference sources because they are classics in litereature, psychology or anthropology. (Continued…)
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