TheAnimus
Saracen, your comments remind me of everything people said about home computers, the internet, mobile phones.
Regrettably it also could be held true against the Sinclair C5
And it was true of home computers, the internet and mobile phones. They only hit the mass market when price was such that they reached critical mass. Prior to that, all three had been available for years but at a price where they didn't appeal to the mass market.
And I was an early adopter on all three, with a home computer (Apple II) in the late '70s, online activity dating back to proprietary dial-up bulletin boards when the likes of Dowty Quattro (2400 baud
max) and earlier US Robotics modems were a grand a piece, and fairly (though not very) early in the cellphone days with BT Cellnet.
Everything starts like that, though. My first CD burner (a Yamaha CDR-100) was about £3000, and the software that drove it (Personal Scribe) another £1000. Blanks were £15 a time. And I do mean EACH. One of my early PCs had a 338MB ESDI hard drive that was about £1500.
These were not, obviously, sums that would appeal to home users. They appealed to businesses and very dedicated enthusiasts. E-readers don't, IMHO, have much of an appeal as a business tool that would justify the £10,000 price tag my second PC (but not second home computer) had as a full retail price (and I got for a lot less than that because of contracts), or the £4000 early mobile phones cost.
The likes of the Kindle are a LOT closer to viable consumer pricing that that. They might even be cheap enough to take off at current prices, and are certainly low enough to be a discretionary, impulse spend for lot of people. But they're not yet (IMHO) at critical mass.
A mobile is more or less a must-have for modern living. I wouldn't really want to be totally without one, but my last (current) one cost me a whopping £5 from ASDA. The other end of the mobile market, clearly, is the like of i-phone (and competitors) or Blackberry-type devices. The mobile market reflects dirt-cheap PAYG services for minimalist uses like me, up to expensive (but good value) contracts for heavy users. The market is mature enough to support all sectors. The e-reader market isn't. Yet.
Which is why I think your comment that people said that about mobile phones, PCs, etc, is dead on. But it's not just about the absolute cost. It's about perceived utility as well. People get much more perceived utility from a modern PC, or a modern mobile phone, than they do from e-book readers, and until
that changes, they'll be a niche product, either for people with a specific need (like those that travel a lot), or that like having the latest fancy gadget.
If you think back to early mobile phones, let alone early home computers, they've grown and adapted a LOT. It makes me wonder how e-readers will adapt over a few years? Will they morph into a must-have like the mobile, or into a techno-curiosity like the C5? I suspect the former, but it's early days.
