> In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?" Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content t

> In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?" Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose. I think the idea is that there's a trade-off between ineffectiveness of this strategy and screw-the-userness, and the parent comment was thinking that maybe they'd realize they should move more down the spectrum towards a better product for the user (i.e. that they were coming on too strong with the lock-in). Aside from whatever ethical qualms you might have about various degrees of lock-in, it's not unreasonable to think that people didn't respond favorably to the level of lock-in Amazon tried with their tablets: hence the hope that they might try an alternative strategy of lock-in (or another way to promote their products) without sacrificing user experience. As an example of two points on the spectrum, imagine a comparison between shipping Chrome that only allows Google Search in the omnibox and the way Chrome actually is, which allows you to pick your search engine. Obviously Google is getting some advantage out of even a Chrome browser in which the search engine can be changed, but it's clearly further along the spectrum towards better user experience (and less effective lock-in) than a Google-Search-only omnibox would be.