"Newspapers have been an absolute bestseller on Kindle," Bezos said. "People love waking up in the morning to find that their New York Times, their Washington Post, their Wall Street Journal have been 'automagically' delivered overnight. They like the fact that when they travel their subscription follows them around."
The idea of the Wall Street Journal delivered to a mobile device instead of having to be printed on a piece of paper does sound like a game changer. Suddenly the newspaper company can close all of their massive printing presses, get rid of their trucks, and a lay off all their newsboys. You can just pay for a Kindle subscription and cut out all of the middle man.
The newspaper industry might even be able to buff up their staff because content will be the great differentiator and not manufacturing costs. They might even be similar to software companies with their fat margins since most of the newspaper companys' expensive overhead can be stripped away.
Of course Amazon might be able to get a cut of each paper downloaded as well as selling the device. The only thing they need to do is drop the price to something a bit more reasonable. I think $500 for an e-reader is just too much but $200 sounds just about right. In any case I think Amazon might be on the cusp of a truly Apple-like spurt of growth as the Kindle gets more and more ubiquitous.
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