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Steve Jobs, Kindle, and the 60 Percent Solution
January 22, 2008

Apple's Steve Jobs last week predicted doom for Amazon.com's Kindle reader, according to the New York Times's Bits column: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”

Um, if 60 percent of the people do read, that's a heck of a lot of reading devices, whether they be from Amazon or some other hardware provider. But it seems clear that the iReader is not tops on Jobs's list.

Posted by Norman Oder on January 22, 2008 | Comments (3)


January 22, 2008
In response to: Steve Jobs, Kindle, and the 60 Percent Solution
Anonymous commented:

Maybe Jobs doesn't realize that over 3,000 books are published daily. I wonder how many albums are?????




March 7, 2008
In response to: Steve Jobs, Kindle, and the 60 Percent Solution
Dan Moore commented:

I think there's a flaw in your logic, Norman. Forty percent read one book in a year. That doesn't mean that sixty percent of people read regularly and would buy the kindle. 20% of those people could read only 3 or 4 books a year, and then it's not even close to being worth buying a $400 wireless device that will be obsolete long before it's been worth purchasing. Also, even people who do ravenously read will either not want to spend the money or prefer to read actual books- or think they do. I don't think it's going to be the next iPod by any stretch of the imagination.




March 7, 2008
In response to: Steve Jobs, Kindle, and the 60 Percent Solution
Norman Oder commented:

Point taken, but I didn't say it would be the next iPod. A good electronic reader surely could find a niche, even if only a small percentage of that 60 percent choose it. Won't the price eventually go down?





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