Maybe that's one of the reasons they didn't go that route? The subsidized cell phone business model can suck for consumers (sorta the point Bezos was making),

Maybe that's one of the reasons they didn't go that route? The subsidized cell phone business model can suck for consumers (sorta the point Bezos was making), but requiring a minimum book purchase is still something some people might go for. I have no idea how they'd implement it, but I suspect you'd pay a monthly fee that "earned" you X number of books. You'd hope they wouldn't let you "forget to buy enough" and thus lose your Kindle service.