Kindling fears
Jan. 21st, 2014 07:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missroseroseSo help me, I think my next e-reader is going to be a Kindle.
I remain on the record as being leery of Jeff Bezos' avowed entertainment-brokerage-domination plans. Which is why my last two e-readers have been Nooks - until this point, they've been more or less equivalent to Kindles in terms of usefulness, and while my growing-up-in-90s-suburbia self would have laughed at the idea of Barnes & Noble being the underdog business that needed championing...well, things have changed. (This isn't to say I'm the biggest B&N fan, either, but variety equals adaptability equals better deals for customers, and is thus better in the business world just as it is in biomes.) And for a while they were doing a pretty good job of staying competitive - the Nook Touch was a substantial improvement over the original Nook, and for the most part I've quite enjoyed using it the past couple years.
The problem being, B&N seems to have more or less given up on innovating. Their successor to the Touch is basically the same one with a glowlight so you can read in the dark. Which definitely fills a gap in the usability of the original, but compared to the new Kindle Paperwhite it fails on just about every metric. The Paperwhite has a better-contrast screen, better light quality, and is reportedly less prone to freeze-ups. Plus the Kindle has the whole direct-publishing community based around it, and (now that I have Prime) a lending library, and Goodreads integration (something I've wanted basically since e-books became a thing), and free 3G access so you can use Wikipedia/Goodreads/what have you on the go, and...
I have to give Our Friend Jeff (as Brian calls him - as in, "Has the package arrived from Our Friend Jeff yet?") credit. He certainly has grasped the Jobsian model of "don't just make products, make them an ecosystem that works together". Which, when you have a base product with the penetration levels of the iPod or the Kindle, works fantastically well for convincing customers to stick with your company. People will do a lot for convenience, and when you offer an objectively better product than the competition as well, that makes the decision even easier. Along those same lines, he also understands the concept of "make it as easy as possible for people to give you money". Which you would think would be part of Running a Business 101, but lots and lots of companies don't seem to understand the concept.
Sigh. It's not like I had any principles about the idea, per se. But still, I can't help but feel a little bit like I'm giving in.
I remain on the record as being leery of Jeff Bezos' avowed entertainment-brokerage-domination plans. Which is why my last two e-readers have been Nooks - until this point, they've been more or less equivalent to Kindles in terms of usefulness, and while my growing-up-in-90s-suburbia self would have laughed at the idea of Barnes & Noble being the underdog business that needed championing...well, things have changed. (This isn't to say I'm the biggest B&N fan, either, but variety equals adaptability equals better deals for customers, and is thus better in the business world just as it is in biomes.) And for a while they were doing a pretty good job of staying competitive - the Nook Touch was a substantial improvement over the original Nook, and for the most part I've quite enjoyed using it the past couple years.
The problem being, B&N seems to have more or less given up on innovating. Their successor to the Touch is basically the same one with a glowlight so you can read in the dark. Which definitely fills a gap in the usability of the original, but compared to the new Kindle Paperwhite it fails on just about every metric. The Paperwhite has a better-contrast screen, better light quality, and is reportedly less prone to freeze-ups. Plus the Kindle has the whole direct-publishing community based around it, and (now that I have Prime) a lending library, and Goodreads integration (something I've wanted basically since e-books became a thing), and free 3G access so you can use Wikipedia/Goodreads/what have you on the go, and...
I have to give Our Friend Jeff (as Brian calls him - as in, "Has the package arrived from Our Friend Jeff yet?") credit. He certainly has grasped the Jobsian model of "don't just make products, make them an ecosystem that works together". Which, when you have a base product with the penetration levels of the iPod or the Kindle, works fantastically well for convincing customers to stick with your company. People will do a lot for convenience, and when you offer an objectively better product than the competition as well, that makes the decision even easier. Along those same lines, he also understands the concept of "make it as easy as possible for people to give you money". Which you would think would be part of Running a Business 101, but lots and lots of companies don't seem to understand the concept.
Sigh. It's not like I had any principles about the idea, per se. But still, I can't help but feel a little bit like I'm giving in.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-22 11:32 am (UTC)Ruggedness? Don't know, I am on my second, the first one eventually succumbed to its "I have no protection!" state and the screen broke in interesting ways. But, at £100 per unit, I am happy with the 14 months use I got and the replacement is getting up on the same age and seems to have no obvious faults, yet. But, then, the replacement does have a protective cover.
OTOH, I can see the better integration, it just comes at a price I am not willing to pay.