>If I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, this will probably be a novelty, like Windows Phone, for a while to come.

Agreed. I'm having trouble visualizing how it moves from being novelty to being ubiquitous. I purchased one of the original Kindles back when it was a novelty, but I understand why it became the dominant eInk device since it was a novelty item with little to no competition. For the Fire, it's a novelty with stiff competition from the beginning.

As someone who rarely shops on Amazon and doesn't want a Prime subscription, why would I chose this phone?

Maybe the answer is Amazon doesn't expect this product to take off fast. Maybe it's a much longer term play initially targeted just to those already comfortably engaged in its ecosystem.