Amazon's Kindle

Farhad Manjoo explains why the locked business model surrounding Amazon's Kindle might be a bad choice for the publishing industry.

You can see where this is going: Kindle owners buy a lot of stuff, and the more stuff they buy, the more likely they are to stick with the Kindle in the future, even when/if someone else invents a better, more open e-book service. This restriction makes Amazon the prime market for book publishers. How can they resist giving over their entire catalog to a store that attracts so many eager, captive shoppers? Publishers' acquiescence in turn increases the Kindle's appeal to new buyers. [...] Taken together, these trends all point in one direction–Amazon will come to rule the market for e-books. And as the master of the e-book universe, Amazon will eventually call the shots on pricing, marketing, and everything else associated with the new medium.