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Comment by sekasi | Hacker News Reader

Bold or irresponsible move? Not sure. Given the incredibly low profit margin of most non-iphone smartphones on the market today (I think the average samsung profit margin on a phone is $11) I can't help but wonder what the real source of revenue was planned to be.

Increased shopping through mobile? Make your android/ios products better?

It just never made any sense, but I guess many successful products don't make initial sense either.

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More and more digital content consumption is happening on mobile devices. And Amazon can't sell on iOS devices because Apple locks out anyone who won't pay a 30% ransom.

You can't buy a book or rent an instant movie on an iPhone. It is a big weak spot.

Can't do them in an app. Both of those things are possible in a web browser on an iPhone.

I can even watch the movie in the Amazon Instant Video app, but I'm not sure I could stand a whole movie on such a tiny screen.

"ransom"? Funny, you can't rent a movie from Google on Amazon.com either. Or buy a Taco Bell burrito from McDonalds.

My iphone isn't apple.com. It is mine. I'm not asking apple to make sure I can get amazon products. I'm asking them not to go out of their way to make sure I can't.

Imagine if Microsoft would only allow software on windows that it approved and got 30% ransom.

Not paying Apple or Google a cut of every product sold via mobile was the revenue plan. If I pay Apple 30% of my profits every time someone orders something via my mobile app, that's a lot of money I can sink into a competing product before it becomes a net loss (assuming I get any traction at all).

> Not paying Apple or Google a cut of every product sold via mobile was the revenue plan. If I pay Apple 30% of my profits every time someone orders something via my mobile app, that's a lot of money I can sink into a competing product before it becomes a net loss (assuming I get any traction at all).

I think the article discussed this mainly in the context of Kindle. It's only digital in app purchases that need to go through Apple's payment processing.

Apple's app stores take 30% of revenues, not profits.

Of course it's for increased shopping through mobile. My daughter bought a Kindle and she admitted her ebook purchases have increased tenfold. Others have told me similar.

I'm deathly afraid to get one for the same reason.

Frictionless purchases and vertical channel integration makes perfect sense to me.

Do you require a whole new device for frictionless shopping? I'm not so convinced that's the case.

My ebook purchases also skyrocketed after I got a Kindle. But it didn't rise because the kindle made it easy to buy ebooks, or even because I prefer ebooks (for technical stuff, I actually don't). It's because I was reading a lot more. I went from 1 or 2 books a year (if even) to 1 to 2 books a week.

My experience is anecdotal, but it might be worthwhile to ask your acquaintances why they buy so many ebooks after buying a Kindle.

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