Original link: http://weiwuhui.com/8646.html
one
On June 2, Amazon announced:
Amazon will stop operating its Kindle e-bookstore in China a year later, on June 30, 2023. After this time, you will not be able to purchase new eBooks. For eBooks already purchased, you can download them until June 30, 2024, and you can continue reading after that.
Old readers who are familiar with me know that I felt that kindle would come to this stage sooner or later. There are several signs that can reflect one or two:
——A long time ago, the z.cn website no longer sells kindle hardware. It feels like it is clearing the inventory.
——The mac version of the kindle app is also a bunch of bugs, which are basically sheep herding
——Amazon China has cut off its self-operated business including paper books. Will e-books be far behind?
This is a typical business failure, basically due to business competition.
Let’s talk about this in two parts. One hard, one soft.
two
As an e-reader, you can say that it is a smart device, but it does not need Moore’s law, and the reason behind it is: Andy Beer’s law fails.
It’s a funny way to say that Andy’s going to take all the Bills that Andy gave you. Andy is Intel’s Andy Grove, and Bill is Microsoft’s Bill Gates. Whenever Intel pulls out a more powerful CPU, Microsoft releases a more chip-eating operating system. This is why the win system has come all the way to today. In fact, from the perspective of user perception, the speed is similar to that of win95.
The essence of Andy Beer’s Law is that when users buy smart devices, they are actually pushed away by the software. Because there is a more powerful operating system and can run software with more complete functions, users will have the need to change the machine. If there is no new version of the software (meaning no stronger, more complex functions), what machine should I change?
E-readers are such an existence.
Because it is not a universal device, it can’t even be used for ten purposes. Its function is very simple: reading – kindle makes this simple to the extreme. It is a completely closed system, under normal operation, you can no longer install other applications.
Therefore, kindle is not a hard industry driven by the tide of changing phones, but a soft industry driven by book copyrights.
three
The essence of Kindle’s business model is to bring the bookstore to your home.
In theory, it is not impossible for kindle as a piece of hardware to lose money or even give it away. Its purpose is to expect you to keep making repeated purchases on Amazon with this hardware. Of course, this is only theoretical. The hardware is really free, and Amazon doesn’t know when it will be able to recover this cost. But a small profit or even a small loss is acceptable.
So the hard business is just the beginning, and the most important thing is the soft business: selling books.
China has China’s book publishing management system, which means that publishing houses still have the right to speak – especially after a series of competitions, several heavyweight players have formed. Some of them are publishing houses (such as CITIC), and some are publishing planning agencies (such as Zhanlu).
The cooperation with the publishing house requires deep cultivation, rather than a few trans-oceanic emails. Amazon China needs to have enough decision-making power, which, according to our public news, it does not have.
At the beginning, there were very few players in this field, and there were some small e-book startup projects that did not do hardware, which were not the opponents of Kindle at all. And the big book websites, whether it’s JD.com or Dangdang, seem to be interested in this type of business.
The so-called good days of kindle are roughly that time. I’m here to say, it’s not how well the kindle works, it’s that there simply aren’t enough competitors.
WeChat reading, this product appeared.
While WeChat Reading is frantically hoarding book copyrights, there are many details that surpass kindle. Due to space limitations, it will not be expanded here. Anyway, we only need to know one thing, in the face of WeChat reading business, kindle has no power to fight back.
WeChat reading is a soft business, and it has not touched hardware for a long time. The Android-based e-reader represented by Aragonite that can install third-party applications perfectly replaces the kindle hardware and carries the WeChat reading software—if users really have the need for electronic ink to not hurt the eyes.
By the way, WeChat reading did indeed produce a piece of aragonite OEM hardware, which was also a closed routine, and no third-party applications were installed, and the price was extremely high. In my opinion, raising the price is nothing more than the buyer’s need for gift-giving. At least so far, there is no sign of Tencent pushing the WeChat reading reader.
Four
In the field of book reading, there is actually a branch that many people will ignore.
This is the online literature market.
In fact, the national reading survey report, which has been done nineteen times today, covers this market. For example, if you see the latest report, “the reading rate of adult nationals in my country will be 59.7% in 2021”, you must be well aware of this: including online literature.
Amazon China’s efforts in this market can almost be described as zero.
And what about WeChat reading?
Have you heard about the 5.5 break in 2020?
If you know this incident, you can understand that WeChat reading has a layout and penetration in the online literature market. This is not surprising at all. Reading WeChat is owned by Tencent!
five
In addition to WeChat reading, there are some players in this market.
For example, get, such as Zhanlu. The former even found aragonite to manufacture the hardware.
These players make the existence of third-party readers meaningful: you need an e-ink pad to load different apps, so you can read different books on multiple platforms.
But this market is actually a very bitter market, selling hardware, the profit margin is really limited. There are thousands of readers, but the potential consumers are very small. The important panel supply behind it has shown an oligopoly pattern, completely caught in the middle, with limited room for maneuvering.
I still maintain a habit of collecting epub/mobi/awz3. Even if I am a member of multiple book apps.
So my most commonly used reading app is neatreader.
The reason for this will not be expanded.
—— The first nitrogen-pulling episode——
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