I got a Kindle Paperwhite for ~$100 in 2016 and still use it almost every day. Easily the best value gadget I have ever owned.
I removed the 3G modem when I replaced the battery to prevent it from being turned on and draining the battery as it constantly tries to connect. The microusb port is not in great condition and only works with the cable at certain angles. On the bright side, that's only an issue every few weeks when it gets charged and a new load of books.
My wife has the newest basic Kindle because she prizes light weight over any other aspect.
Zeugma in the wild.
On whether $100 is incredibly cheap/"chump change": It really is incredibly cheap, especially for a new electronic device you can use for thousands of hours over 9 years. That's not the same as a claim it's an easy expense for every person, if we become bound by that definition of cheap then there is no such price which everyone can easily afford and we lose the distinction. On that note, I often wonder if it's cheaper for libraries to just rent out ereaders than manage more physical book storage and exchange. I know my local library already does rentals but I'm not sure of the economics.
Once the market is saturated, you can't rely on selling more devices, even at lower prices. Companies have to turn to extracting more money from existing customers, like subscriptions and services.
Where's GPT5 anyway? Isn't that supposed to be out by now? Sorry, that's not super relevant..
I'm curious how much you think an e-reader should cost?
Let's say the BOM for a bargain-bin e-reader is ~$65: e-ink display (~$25), mainboard (~$15), touchscreen and/or buttons (~$7), radios (~$3), battery (~$3), case (~$3), assembly (~$6), packaging (~$3). Forget about a charging cable. Then you've got to iron out the drivers and software, provide support, handle returns (which will be higher if you cheap out on materials) and turn a profit (assuming you're not Amazon). Let's say you charge ~1.5x BOM, now your product is ~$98.
Maybe you "borrow" your software and hardware designs from a competitor. Maybe you're willing to continuously change your company name so you can purchase low-quality parts without having to accept returns. Maybe you ask suppliers for a discount because you just know you're going to have enormous economies of scale and you're somehow more convincing than every other company (that isn't Amazon) asking for the same discount.
You do all of the above so you can sell your new e-reader for the insanely low price of $80. Will you move enough units for all that to be worth it? Are there really that many customers who would buy your $80 no-name e-reader instead of a second-hand Kindle?
BOM for a color eink about 35$ all together for a mass produced quantity of one, delivered anywhere (until tariffs).
Assumed quantity of customers, millions? Its so cheap that governments could give it out to schools, one eink ebook per child, cheaper than one year's worth of school books anyway.
Assuming it's that simple, do you have an alternate theory as to why e-readers in this range are not more common?
I definitely agree that selling hardware at cost (or at a loss) in the hopes of turning a profit off of content sales is an extremely risky strategy. Many companies try that approach, few succeed.
But if you price it like a typical consumer product and sell it for ~1.5 * BOM (i.e. ~$50 retail price on $35 BOM) then you don't need anyone to buy books because you can survive off the profit from the hardware alone. And because I believe that a $50 ereader would sell well, I don't know why they are not more common if it really is possible to build and assemble a mass-market ereader with a $35 BOM as the prior poster claimed.
Most of the rest of your calculations mostly make sense.
I think rising consumer expectations soak up a lot of that -- you could make the main board and other components a third the price if you're satisfied with mid-2000s specs e.g. 200MB storage, slow page turns, bundled radios, no touchscreen, no PDF support, etc.
At some point the raw materials cost (which generally aren't getting much cheaper) becomes a major factor and that's harder to cut without a new approach.
Eink screen aside, it may be that we're just nearing the limits with current manufacturing approaches and that the next leap requires a wildly different approach.
A comparable entry-level model (Kobo Clara BW) today is €149 - 12% cheaper. It's also now waterproof and does bluetooth audio.
It's a niche product that doesn't really benefit much from economies of scale (think eInk displays of that size). I don't think anyone is getting ripped off here.
This progress will likely slow, patents will expire and then maybe prices will fall. But $100 for a device that will last you years seems okay.
And I've never seen anything on the market that even competes with my first reader that I brought around 2010.
Those things seem to be getting constantly more expensive, with the "cheapest price" being maintained by launching smaller models. All while constantly getting lower contrasts and less oriented towards offline usage.
Kindle is a similar story, although some value the physical keyboard and 3G.
And what smaller models? Most eReaders have been 6" since the days of the Sony Librie. Recently we have had explosion of larger readers too.
Now granted, the color models don't have the best contrast, but I'm pretty sure a modern Carta 1300 BW reader will be superior to your what 8 year old Carta HD reader, even with extra layers.
> Most eReaders have been 6" since the days of the Sony Librie.
7" readers were common when I brought my current one, but nowadays there are only 6" ones out there. A bit before I brought mine, there existed 8" ones, and Amazon launched an interesting A4 sized one.
7 and 8" inch devices very much still exist. Kobo has the 7" Libra Colour and the 8" Sage. Amazon also moved the popular Paperwhite line from a 6" device to 7". Pocketbook has 7 and 8" readers. 7" only got MORE common if anything. Six inches was the most common eInk size for a long time.
You can still get big format devices with notetaking. Now the big brands like Amazon and Kobo have them in addition to smaller players like Boox or Meebook.
There are still large format paper devices. Kobo Elipsa 2E for $350, Remarkable 2 for a touch more, etc etc. They're not sold as ebook readers, but you can read books on them fine.
Still to this day, people will say that the Kindle Voyage still has the best screen of an e-ink device and well it came out just over 10 years ago.
The inflation is staggering.
Anyone else remember the $6 Burger from Carl's? It didn't cost $6 at first, it cost like $3, and was aimed at "expensive restaurant burgers" They discontinued the Burger when tbe Burger itself cost $6 a LA carte.
A $6 burger now is a steal
And yes, we have kind of a restaurant death spiral because it is expensive to eat out.
What? They are cheaper. Costing the same now that they did 10 years ago is a price drop of 25%.
It's mostly because I like owning a more portable file.
Also a paper book you'd carry every day with you for a year will look in much worse state than a Kindle.
Reading e-books is an affordable past time...
Which/why did they remove the book?
[0] https://www.npr.org/2009/07/24/106989048/amazons-1984-deleti...
The irony that it was Orwell’s 1984 that was secretly removed from purchasers’ kindles seem to have been totally lost on Amazon.
Generally not a big fan of Amazon-world, but if you don't mind reading older books kindle is good value I think. My 30pence copy of Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia" was very good value, and has not yet mysteriously disappeared from my Kindles!
Infuriates me when the paperback is $4-5 cheaper than the ebook, henchman’s exactly uncommon.
I think I'm on my third now, and while I kinda begrudge buying new ones the paper-white I've got now, with backlight, is such a pleasure to use I can almost forgive it.
It's the best gadget I've ever bought.
The new one is a lot faster.
Not to mention that you can just buy an old generation, or used/refurbished, if you want cheaper than that.
That said, I am very happy with my Supernote Nomad as an e-reader as well (it is a note taking device, but runs the Kindle Android app) even if it is completely out of the price range the OP discusses.