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Am I crazy or is a $100 kindle not “cheap”? It’s not like it’s a single-use product. I don’t understand the desire for a $8 e-reader, it’s effectively a one-tim

Am I crazy or is a $100 kindle not “cheap”? It’s not like it’s a single-use product. I don’t understand the desire for a $8 e-reader, it’s effectively a one-time purchase (maybe once every 4-5 years at worst?).

Wilduck 1y ago
Agree! I bought my kindle in 2016 and have read hundreds of books on it. The cost per book at this point is in the pennies. It's not like you have to buy a new device every book, or even every few years. Also I was very confused by the assertion that ebooks are a niche market. By the authors math more than 20% of people in the UK use e-readers to read on a regular basis. That seems like a very healthy market to me!
- porridgeraisin 1y ago
  Do 20% really use e-readers? Sounds like a huge number. Do 20% even read frequently? I'm not from the UK, and I'll admit my current reading habits are a sad excuse for what they were in my childhood and teens, so there might be some selection bias here.
  - devilbunny 1y ago
    Probably "20% of readers..." I can say that out of the people I saw reading during my last beach vacation, almost all were using an e-Ink reader. They used to keep a small library of "beach books" you could read; that's gone. Casual readers have moved on to something else; people who read a lot have moved to e-Ink for outdoors.
apwell23 1y ago
i got my scribe for $250 and its my most used device after my laptop. great value.
deleted 1y ago
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MallocVoidstar 1y ago
Yeah, my Kindle is still working well enough after 10+ years. I haven't thrown it off any cliffs but I've dropped it a few times over the years. Whatever I paid works out pretty cheap at this point.
naravara 1y ago
Yeah my impression is that Kindles last basically forever. They’re like typewriters where you should just buy the nicest one you can afford when you need it and use it until it can’t be repaired. IMO Kindles were best when they had hardware buttons so I have no interest in buying these new touchscreen ones.
- Suppafly 1y ago
  >IMO Kindles were best when they had hardware buttons so I have no interest in buying these new touchscreen ones. I'm really surprised the cheapest one is $100 now, they used to have a little one for ~$50 that physical buttons on either side of the screen with the old non-paperwhite screen.
Yossarrian22 1y ago
Yes when the alternative for a hardback book approaches $20, $100 every five or more years seems reasonable. If you wait you can likely get an older model on sale
entuno 1y ago
I think it's mostly down to how cheap tablets and phones are. The cheapest Kindle on Amazon's site seems to be $130, which doesn't sound that expensive on its own. There's also a version full of adverts for about $20 less. But when you stick it next to a 10" Android tablet with an 8 core CPU, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, full colour higher resolution screen, dual cameras and all that jazz, which is less than half the price of a black and white Kindle...suddenly it doesn't look so great.
- joshstrange 1y ago
  For someone who has never used a Kindle/e-ink reader I would agree with you, they will be tempted by the "cheaper, more capable" device but as someone who has owned iPads/Fire Tablets/Android tablets _and_ an e-ink reader (Kindle) I can tell you it's a whole different world. E-ink is just so much nicer to read when you are reading a book and the battery life is amazing. Compare that to Android where you might be tempted to install Social Media Z app (I can't use X anymore :/) or your email/IM app. The distractions from that make it a sub-par reading device IMHO.
  - entuno 1y ago
    Absolutely, I have a e-ink reader and I love it. But if you stick it next to a tablet half its price, it looks outdated and overpriced by comparison, because things like the benefits of e-ink and the build quality meaning it lasts years aren't very visible or apparent.
- squigz 1y ago
  > But when you stick it next to a 10" Android tablet with an 8 core CPU, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, full colour higher resolution screen, dual cameras and all that jazz, which is less than half the price of a black and white Kindle...suddenly it doesn't look so great. $60 for all that? I wonder how it runs in reality, and how well it'll run in just a year or two. The thing about these dirt cheap tablets is... they're cheap for a reason, and it's not simply because that hardware is cheap these days. I've never once used, or had a family member bought, one of those super cheap tablets or laptops, and not have it be unusable in less than a year. They grind to a crawl, stop receiving updates, etc. On the other hand, as many other comments here say... my Kindles are the absolute best value electronic device I've ever bought, no contest. I got one of the first generation Kindles, and only had to replace it a couple years ago after quite a few drops eventually broke the screen.

Wilduck 1y ago

Agree! I bought my kindle in 2016 and have read hundreds of books on it. The cost per book at this point is in the pennies. It's not like you have to buy a new device every book, or even every few years. Also I was very confused by the assertion that ebooks are a niche market. By the authors math more than 20% of people in the UK use e-readers to read on a regular basis. That seems like a very healthy market to me!

porridgeraisin 1y ago
Do 20% really use e-readers? Sounds like a huge number. Do 20% even read frequently? I'm not from the UK, and I'll admit my current reading habits are a sad excuse for what they were in my childhood and teens, so there might be some selection bias here.
- devilbunny 1y ago
  Probably "20% of readers..." I can say that out of the people I saw reading during my last beach vacation, almost all were using an e-Ink reader. They used to keep a small library of "beach books" you could read; that's gone. Casual readers have moved on to something else; people who read a lot have moved to e-Ink for outdoors.

apwell23 1y ago

i got my scribe for $250 and its my most used device after my laptop. great value.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

MallocVoidstar 1y ago

Yeah, my Kindle is still working well enough after 10+ years. I haven't thrown it off any cliffs but I've dropped it a few times over the years. Whatever I paid works out pretty cheap at this point.

naravara 1y ago

Yeah my impression is that Kindles last basically forever. They’re like typewriters where you should just buy the nicest one you can afford when you need it and use it until it can’t be repaired. IMO Kindles were best when they had hardware buttons so I have no interest in buying these new touchscreen ones.

Suppafly 1y ago
>IMO Kindles were best when they had hardware buttons so I have no interest in buying these new touchscreen ones. I'm really surprised the cheapest one is $100 now, they used to have a little one for ~$50 that physical buttons on either side of the screen with the old non-paperwhite screen.

Yossarrian22 1y ago

Yes when the alternative for a hardback book approaches $20, $100 every five or more years seems reasonable. If you wait you can likely get an older model on sale

entuno 1y ago

I think it's mostly down to how cheap tablets and phones are. The cheapest Kindle on Amazon's site seems to be $130, which doesn't sound that expensive on its own. There's also a version full of adverts for about $20 less. But when you stick it next to a 10" Android tablet with an 8 core CPU, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, full colour higher resolution screen, dual cameras and all that jazz, which is less than half the price of a black and white Kindle...suddenly it doesn't look so great.

joshstrange 1y ago
For someone who has never used a Kindle/e-ink reader I would agree with you, they will be tempted by the "cheaper, more capable" device but as someone who has owned iPads/Fire Tablets/Android tablets _and_ an e-ink reader (Kindle) I can tell you it's a whole different world. E-ink is just so much nicer to read when you are reading a book and the battery life is amazing. Compare that to Android where you might be tempted to install Social Media Z app (I can't use X anymore :/) or your email/IM app. The distractions from that make it a sub-par reading device IMHO.
- entuno 1y ago
  Absolutely, I have a e-ink reader and I love it. But if you stick it next to a tablet half its price, it looks outdated and overpriced by comparison, because things like the benefits of e-ink and the build quality meaning it lasts years aren't very visible or apparent.
squigz 1y ago
> But when you stick it next to a 10" Android tablet with an 8 core CPU, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, full colour higher resolution screen, dual cameras and all that jazz, which is less than half the price of a black and white Kindle...suddenly it doesn't look so great. $60 for all that? I wonder how it runs in reality, and how well it'll run in just a year or two. The thing about these dirt cheap tablets is... they're cheap for a reason, and it's not simply because that hardware is cheap these days. I've never once used, or had a family member bought, one of those super cheap tablets or laptops, and not have it be unusable in less than a year. They grind to a crawl, stop receiving updates, etc. On the other hand, as many other comments here say... my Kindles are the absolute best value electronic device I've ever bought, no contest. I got one of the first generation Kindles, and only had to replace it a couple years ago after quite a few drops eventually broke the screen.