Kindle with Ads? How do we Feel About this?

At the end of the day, the customer has the choice of whether to click on an ad and then another choice to purchase. You're not required to do eitherm and if you chosose not to, the ads simply become an annoyance factor. is the extra $25 discount an acceptable tradeoff for getting a Kindle? IMO, lower price means more accessibility, so I'm in favor of it. As an author, the more I can get my (e)book into a reader's hands, the better. So, yes, I'm in favor of it. Doesn't mean I'd rather not see the ads, but, again, my choice not to follow the links.

I have a distaste for ads in the first place. Haven't owned a TV for years, run adblocker on the vast majority of websites I use and don't listen to the radio, so when I encounter ads I find them really intrusive. Would definitely pay the £25 difference to avoid ads if I was buying a kindle, not that I could spare the £100+ in the first place!

I don't see anything wrong with this. I still get adverts on my ipod during podcasts etc. And then when I browse youtube there's an advert before every video now.

I see this as a benefit for people who want it but were hindered by owning one, because there are people who will want this despite the adverts. They will see this as a fair bargain for the cheaper price tag.

At some point somebody is going to pile in to ad-supported book streaming. This may be the first toe in the water.

I'm a big fan of Spotify and it would not horrify me if in order to read the new Stephen King book for free they made me watch an advert every few chapters.

BunnyMaz said:

Would definitely pay the £25 difference to avoid ads if I was buying a kindle, not that I could spare the £100+ in the first place!

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I'm with you, particularly about the price of either version. I can't see spending that kind of money just to make reading a little more convenient. Having a *slightly* cheaper version with ads doesn't make any more sense to me. There isn't a book written I need that badly.

Out of interest, what's this level of advertising worth to you, as a discount? If $25 is not enough to persuade you, would $50 be?

Honestly? I wouldn't buy it with ads full stop. I'm doing just fine with physical books that I can keep on my shelves or pass on to a friend/donate to a library/give to a charity shop when I'm done with it, and I will not voluntarily buy into any medium just to get bombarded with ads. I mean, some magazines have more ad pages than actual content now (I'm looking at you, previously-favoured now overpriced New Scientist). There's nothing in a magazine, website, TV show or anything else I cannot get elsewhere ad-free.

Just to take the example of Spotify, that's basically a streaming version of iTunes that you can listen to for free. Every half an hour or so, they play an advert - essentially, a 30-second spot you might get on commercial radio. Or you can pay a tenner a month to remove all ads and just have all-you-can-eat music for a flat fee.

Would anything like that tempt you at all? I agree that this Amazon offer looks rather small beer in comparison.

Honestly? Not really. Like I said, anything out there one company is offering with ads can easily be got ad-free.

I try to look out for bands I might enjoy - don't use itunes so it's generally word of mouth, forum chatter, blogs or youtube. I always go to the musician's own website first; if I can hear a sample on the band website I listen to it and if I can pay to download a non-itunes MP3 via the band website or amazon or whatever I will. If no sample is offered, I'll check them out on soulseek and then buy the music from the band if I like it. That way I've found Prof Elemental, Dr Steel, Protomen, Voltaire, Yat Kha, Puscifer and allsorts.

BunnyMaz said:

Prof Elemental, Dr Steel, Protomen, Voltaire, Yat Kha, Puscifer and allsorts.

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That sounds like the world's most awesome superteam!

If you're already dropping >$100 on a device, it's a no-brainer to spend the extra $25 for an ad-free experience. If it's not, you probably shouldn't be spending the >$100 in the first place.

I don't see the point of ad-supported hardware. It's sillier than Chrome OS.

My issue is less the ads, since they show up in place of the screensavers, and more the price. $25 less, when Amazon is probably going to make considerably more over selling readers' eyeballs to folks? They ought to be offering the Kindle with Special Offers for free, or $29.99 or something.

If you had been considering an eReader and suddenly you could get a Kindle for $29.99, as long as you were willing to see ads on the screen whenever it went to sleep? I know a lot of people who would be all over that, especially if it had the 3G. But apparently this one only has WiFi, and only costs $25 less than the WiFi-only version without ads, so... I guess I don't see why this will be attractive. Or disruptive in any way, shape or form.

JSSchley said:

Now, I've been whining for years that this was the direction that Amazon was going--why else would they create their own, device-specific ebook format when every other reader was going more and more toward ePub and PDF?

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One minor point... Amazon isn't using their own device-specific format. They're using Mobipocket, which was the pre-ePub industry standard. At the time they started developing the Kindle, I don't think much of anything used ePub; everyone either used their own formats (Microsoft Reader .LIT, Sony Reader .LRF/.LRX, etc.), used PDF or used Mobipocket. What isolates Amazon from other Mobipocket devices is how they handle DRM.

Mind you, ePub doesn't use standardized DRM either. As a result, some devices use Adobe Digital Editions DRM atop ePub (Sony Reader), others use Fairplay (iBooks), B&N has its own DRM scheme based around using your credit card data as a key(!), though the nook can also support ADE for Overdrive library books, etc.

So, as long as you get something that's DRM-protected, even being on ePub isn't enough. You can't buy a book in Apple's iBookstore and take it to the Sony Reader, nor can you buy a book from Barnes & Noble and take it into iBooks, etc.

That said, it would be nice if Amazon had jumped to ePub with everyone else; ePub is a less horrible file format than Mobipocket.

I wasn't likely to buy a Kindle in the first place. If they're going to put ads in my books there's no way in hell I'd buy one.

I realize that the concept of consumerism drives a capitalistic economy but they're irritating. And Amazon's idea of what I might want to buy based on things I look at online is bizarre and just wrong. Their emails are ridiculous. The last thing I want is that kind of annoyance while I'm trying to read.

jennontheisland said:

I realize that the concept of consumerism drives a capitalistic economy but they're irritating.

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Wait until Infinite Jest happens and we get subsidized time.

JSSchley said:

What we really need is one platform, one standard, and one DRM. Let technological people make readers, and let bookstores sell books. But that would ruin the fun.

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No, we need multiple platforms, compatible standards, and no DRM.

It's a seller's option and a buyer's choice. I see no problem with that. It's a free world. If you don't like ads, shell out more $$$. If you can afford the extra cost, get one without the ads. Let the consumers decide if this is a hit or a dud. It's a buyer's market.

I'm sick to death of being advertised at. I don't own a Kindle and had no plans to get one anytime soon, but adding commercials to it has just ensured that "some day maybe" has become "never."

It doesn't matter that it's cheaper or that you can pay more to get one without ads. I won't be buying a Kindle or any other e-reader that jumps on this bandwagon, because you know that it's just the start. A discreet ad that's easily ignored will soon grow into a commercial at the end of every chapter as advertisers demand ways to prevent readers from avoiding them.

Anybody else in the US remember the halcyon days when they tried putting cigarette ads in the middle of paperbacks?

Scribhneoir said:

It doesn't matter that it's cheaper or that you can pay more to get one without ads. I won't be buying a Kindle or any other e-reader that jumps on this bandwagon, because you know that it's just the start. A discreet ad that's easily ignored will soon grow into a commercial at the end of every chapter as advertisers demand ways to prevent readers from avoiding them.

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That's a little cynical, I think. The consumer's experience is still important, IMHO, when it comes to content consumption. Commercials have been around forever in almost every media imaginable, including prints. But even with the most prevalent ad-propelled media (newspapers, magazines, TV, the Internet), the ads are seldom there to hinder the readers' experience, and it's ALWAYS a consumer's choice to click or not click, to watch or not watch (what with DVRs, etc. that skip over commercials).

The trend at the moment in all sorts of media seems to be to provide an ad-free product that you pay full price for, or an ad-supported version at a discount or for free. I am not averse to that model; I can tolerate a few ads in the name of cheap/free content, the way we all did with commercial TV before box sets and PVRs.

Torgo said:

The trend at the moment in all sorts of media seems to be to provide an ad-free product that you pay full price for, or an ad-supported version at a discount or for free. I am not averse to that model; I can tolerate a few ads in the name of cheap/free content, the way we all did with commercial TV before box sets and PVRs.

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Yeah, I don't see a problem as long as there's an ad-free model, too.

What confuses me is ad-supported hardware. Are you able to, say, pay the $25 later and get the ads removed over the 'net or something? This is easily technically possible, but I wonder if it's supported.

That's a little cynical, I think. The consumer's experience is still important, IMHO, when it comes to content consumption. Commercials have been around forever in almost every media imaginable, including prints. But even with the most prevalent ad-propelled media (newspapers, magazines, TV, the Internet), the ads are seldom there to hinder the readers' experience, and it's ALWAYS a consumer's choice to click or not click, to watch or not watch (what with DVRs, etc. that skip over commercials).

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Dude. Have you seen US-style TV channels? Stayed around the MILs last week and the little SIL had an american channel on. One 30 minute show divided up into FOUR segments with 5 mins of adverts in between and ads either side. The section of the show were shorter than ad space!