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Apple sells movies, music and books in order to sell devices. Amazon sells devices in order to sell books, movies and music. This.

by joshwa 15y ago

philwelch 15y ago
Obvious follow up: then why not let Apple sell the devices and Amazon sell the content?
- notauser 15y ago
  Because Apple want a 30% cut of all content sold via the iPad, which represents a larger margin than Amazon can afford to give away whilst remaining a profitable distributor.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Someone 15y ago
  Because Apple does not accept that solution? The chunk they want would seriously eat into Amazon's margins.
- bad_user 15y ago
  Big companies would be stupid to rely on anybody else's platform. That's why Google released Android in the first place.
- zach 15y ago
  Why not let Apple sell the devices and Amazon sell the content? Great question. It does seem efficient, what with comparative advantage and all. Because then then that's an experience that's either customer-integrated or concessionary. A customer-integrated experience means bringing your own food to the stadium, maybe from the place across the street. That's what MP3 players were like before the iTunes Music Store. Dedicated experts love customer-integrated experiences, but they're the only ones. A concessionary experience means renting the stadium's food stand to the highest bidder. The highest bidders are either cheapskates or have deeper business motives. The best case is that they just want to expose consumers to some other brand. But when the parties have overlapping interests, things get messy and unstable (i.e. Google on Yahoo, otherwise a great win for users). These types of experiences both have an annoying tendency to suck out loud. Apple's mastery in creating great integrated experiences is one of Steve Jobs' greatest legacies. It's something great creators strive to do and customers are happy to pay for. If Apple were to move away from providing a well-integrated experience, they'd be moving away from not only their key strength but their key value to their users.
saturdaysaint 15y ago
Unfortunately for Amazon, selling other people's content is far less lucrative than selling your own high-end devices. I'd venture to say that their only way of making a sustainable/profitable business is some sort of ad-supported model. Many people keep holding up the videogame console model as a way to beat the iPad - sell the hardware at a loss, profit from software and licencing - but it doesn't work in the era of $1/freemium megahits and ad-supported web apps. Trying to make money off of movies/music/books is even more difficult. Piracy will always be easy and the competition among middlemen (Rdio, Spotify, Google, Apple, Netflix, the content companies themselves) is even more cut-throat than the software platform business.

Apple sells movies, music and books in order to sell devices. Amazon sells devices in order to sell books, movies and music. This.

by joshwa 15y ago

Apple sells movies, music and books in order to sell devices. Amazon sells devices in order to sell books, movies and music. This.

philwelch 15y ago

Obvious follow up: then why not let Apple sell the devices and Amazon sell the content?

notauser 15y ago
Because Apple want a 30% cut of all content sold via the iPad, which represents a larger margin than Amazon can afford to give away whilst remaining a profitable distributor.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Someone 15y ago
Because Apple does not accept that solution? The chunk they want would seriously eat into Amazon's margins.
bad_user 15y ago
Big companies would be stupid to rely on anybody else's platform. That's why Google released Android in the first place.
zach 15y ago
Why not let Apple sell the devices and Amazon sell the content? Great question. It does seem efficient, what with comparative advantage and all. Because then then that's an experience that's either customer-integrated or concessionary. A customer-integrated experience means bringing your own food to the stadium, maybe from the place across the street. That's what MP3 players were like before the iTunes Music Store. Dedicated experts love customer-integrated experiences, but they're the only ones. A concessionary experience means renting the stadium's food stand to the highest bidder. The highest bidders are either cheapskates or have deeper business motives. The best case is that they just want to expose consumers to some other brand. But when the parties have overlapping interests, things get messy and unstable (i.e. Google on Yahoo, otherwise a great win for users). These types of experiences both have an annoying tendency to suck out loud. Apple's mastery in creating great integrated experiences is one of Steve Jobs' greatest legacies. It's something great creators strive to do and customers are happy to pay for. If Apple were to move away from providing a well-integrated experience, they'd be moving away from not only their key strength but their key value to their users.

saturdaysaint 15y ago

Unfortunately for Amazon, selling other people's content is far less lucrative than selling your own high-end devices. I'd venture to say that their only way of making a sustainable/profitable business is some sort of ad-supported model. Many people keep holding up the videogame console model as a way to beat the iPad - sell the hardware at a loss, profit from software and licencing - but it doesn't work in the era of $1/freemium megahits and ad-supported web apps. Trying to make money off of movies/music/books is even more difficult. Piracy will always be easy and the competition among middlemen (Rdio, Spotify, Google, Apple, Netflix, the content companies themselves) is even more cut-throat than the software platform business.