Scribd, after dabbling for a long time in the pdf sharing arena, has changed for a model just like this some time ago. One of the founders has even come here at HN recently to talk about it (I can't find the post right now).
I wonder how will they react to this announcement. If they try to compete directly, not only will it be an uphill battle, but Amazon has a hell of firepower with the Kindle and Fire ecosystems.
If this happens, it will be my dream come true. Unlimited ebooks/audiobooks is probably my #1 most requested "feature" from the world. Especially since Amazon allows syncing between audiobooks and ebooks, but I really hate paying for both.
Seriously, I'm such an Amazon fanboy :)
Interesting to see what the difference between publishing books online vs. publishing real book will be in 10 years.
My thinking on this has evolved over time. Especially with NetFlix. The 'stream what ever you want' service is great if 'what ever you want' is actually available, but something that it turns out is even more important for me, is that something you wanted before, is still available now. I go back and read books sometimes, and I go back and rewatch movies of TV shows. The random loss of content on Netflix has forced me to go back to buying the DVDs and ripping them rather than depend on NetFlix to have on tuesday something they had on Friday.
For reference books especially, it would drive me insane to have the book available, and then not available.
This bothers me as well. After you've watched something several times on Netflix and then it isn't available, I feel like they've taken something valuable away from me, even though I never owned it in the first place.
But this often results in me buying a physical copy, so I suppose that's a win for the movie studios.
Some people seem to be missing the point about "why Amazon would do this and 'cannibalize' itself". Here's why - yes, some people are going to pay the $10 a month, and read 5 books a month, and those will be like 1 percent of their e-book customers. The vast majority, if switched to this model, would pay $10 a month, and only read 2 books a year. The rest, will keep buying ebooks just like now, so nothing will change from that perspective.
I'm guessing Amazon has enough data to know that this will end up profitable for them. In a way, it's just like Prime. Some probably order a ton of stuff every month, becoming unprofitable Prime members for Amazon, while others only a couple of year, yet still pay $99 a year for free shipping.
It's only like any other "unlimited" deal out there. Some customers will be very unprofitable as they will take full advantage of the "unlimited" offer, but the vast majority of the customers will more than make up for it.
That was the argument for music subscription services. $10/month for practically-unlimited music sounds bananas on the surface, but they're making more money than the 2-4 albums a year most people bought back in the glory days of CDs.
Nobody who reads two books a year is going to sign up for this service. Only people who read more than $10 of books per month are going to sign up.
Unlike prime, heavier users don't bring any additional revenue with this program. Prime members spend hundreds of dollars more per year than non-prime customers.
Plenty of people (such as myself) find themselves buying several actual hard-copy books a year only to read two or three of them. It's definitely not rational -- maybe call it aspirational.
the experience is typically atrocious however (looking at you overdrive.com) and the selection limited. netflix is easy and reasonably comprehensive. hopefully amazon's product will be as well.
I wonder if you have a not ideal library? I get a large fraction of my audiobooks and ebooks from libraries. For very popular books there's a bit of a wait list, but if you have a very long "to-read" list like I do and a library card at a major metropolitan area (in many states, you can get a library card at any library in your state assuming they take state-level funding, so if you live in a small town in California, for example, you can still get a library card at the SF Public Library and the LA Public Library so you'll have access to larger catalogs), there's usually quite a bit that's available.
New York Public Library here. the selection is definitely better than smaller library systems, but the experience still sucks compared to something like netflix. between finding the books I want in the catalog, never mind a decent recommendation system, reserving ebooks on a waitlist and finally getting a rented ebook onto my devices, it was so tedious that I just stopped bothering trying to check out ebooks from the library, despite the fact that it's free.
I signed up for my local library and bought a Kindle precisely so I can check ebooks. Come to find out there is a waiting list for every book I've found that it worth reading to me, some of the ebooks only having one "copy". I know the publishers license it so they can make money, but that's ridiculous. Limitations of physical goods should not translate 1:1 into the digital world. One physical book should be the same as 10 ebooks.
As long as publishers control these books, we'll continue to see such ridiculous inefficiencies as "waiting lists" for a digital book, or a digital book that self-destructs after 30 checkouts.
This only happens because consumers put up with it.
Once I discovered this I immediately went to my library to sign up. It's fantastic and I can now rent books digitally. The people using Amazon's service could be easily using the libraries in their community.
At least from the good reads I gather hardly people read more that 2 books per month. In a way $10 dollars is just the same thing, assuming $5 dollar is your average price of the book. If anything Amazon will profit from the all the users who read less but simply subscribe to it.
You also get the benefit of instant access to a huge catalog, though. Sometimes you just want to look up a quote in a book you read last year, or get a sample of an author that was recommended to you, or look up the context of a passage you saw quoted online, etc. That alone is not worth $10 a month, but it does add a little value beyond just reading full books.
If it also has non-fiction books - which usually are very amenable to skimming , or to reading just interesting parts , it's a very good value for $10.
I think the word "problem" is a bit of a stretch. It may not have as much actual value -- dollar cost of books read in a month/$9.99 -- as the perceived value -- unlimited. However, a successful product is about perceived value, not necessarily actual value. As the parent comment mentions, that convenience of looking something up without worrying about costs or alternate searching, and the freedom to not have to worry about the price of individual books, or having a shared kindle unlimited for a whole family with kids you want to encourage to read, are all worth something to a customer that can't be assessed in dollars. And of course, it's up to the customer to evaluate if they actually have the needs fulfilled by the product.
It's definitely a brilliant business move on Amazon's part.
Yeah, it's an interesting situation. I've been averaging around 12 books per month (audio and ebooks) pretty consistently this year, mainly because I've been really good about going to the gym (I do all my reading on an elliptical). Last year, read about 30-40 books, nearly all of it in the first few months and the last few months of the year, because during that middle period I had stopped going to the gym regularly. I probably read about 2 or 3 books during that time.
I could very much imagine someone having "clumpy" reading rates like that, where they read a lot of books in one month, then almost no books in other months.
I like to read schlocky fantasy novels and mysteries when I'm winding down in the evening, and I can plow through a book in a week easily; two or three days if I don't have a lot to do, and less than that if I have a long flight. If this offers me the ability to snag every book in a series (say, all of Richard Stark's Parker novels, or all of Robert Parker's Spenser novels), then that actually sounds like an incredible deal.
Maybe a lot of people won't get a benefit out of it, but I could easily spend more than ten bucks a month on ebooks that I don't actually care about owning for long periods of time.
What's new here? People who use their all-access passes less have always subsidized the ones who use them more, no matter the market- movies, gyms, buffetts...
I'm guessing the ebooks will only be available on true Kindle devices. I just wanted to use the Prime Lending Library for the first time last week, and was disappointed that books can only be rented and viewed on Kindle devices, so my iPad and PC reader are out of luck. They don't broadcast this fact very clearly either, since to me "Kindle device" implies any official Kindle client.
I would be absolutely livid if Amazon (and I) lost access to a book while I was in the middle of reading it. People just consume books and video content so differently, that I don't think makes sense for too many people.
Seems like they could just announce removals 30 days in advance which would give you plenty of time to finish a normal book. They could also stop new downloads of a book during this or a shorter period to prevent people from starting a book without time to finish it. To those that havent started the book, it would just appear that its already been removed from availability. Some kind of a warning of how much longer it will be available on the device would also be helpful as long as its not intrusive.
I wonder how will they react to this announcement. If they try to compete directly, not only will it be an uphill battle, but Amazon has a hell of firepower with the Kindle and Fire ecosystems.