Kindle, have you ever been?

2021 is up, are you still willing to buy a Kindle?

In terms of knowledge, Gao Zan's answer listed three reasons, "as long as the barrel of instant noodles is still produced", "as long as the iPad smashes the face too painfully", "as long as the mobile phone is easy to insomnia".

Under the baggage, there is some sadness. These reasons are practical, but when Bezos made an e-reader, the original intention was to "make all the people who sell paper books unemployed."

Bezos' sense of crisis

2007 is a year worth remembering for the global Internet. In January of that year, Apple's first iPhone came out and went on sale in the middle of the year.

Amazon, another giant, also made an extraordinary decision. In November 2007, the first-generation Kindle was released. The $399 reader, which only has a black-and-white display, is the benchmark for the Sony reader that was launched the previous year.

In fact, before the official launch, Amazon founder Bezos had the idea of making an e-reader. The accepted view is that bezos' innovation stemmed from a sense of crisis, especially after the birth of the iPod. In the new century, the combination of iPod + iTunes has not only swallowed up a lot of Amazon's share, but also subverted the traditional record industry model.

For Amazon, which made its fortune selling physical books, this is undoubtedly a heavy hammer. So in 2004, Amazon secretly set up a research and development team - Amazon Lab 126 Laboratory. Amazon's executive in charge of the paper book business was appointed to run the e-reader when Bezos told him, "Your job is to take down your own business." Put all the people who sell paper books out of work."

The so-called variation, it turns out that Bezos has two brushes. After being on the shelves, the screen with a texture like paper instantly captured the hearts of readers around the world. When it was first released, 25,000 units sold out in 5.5 hours, and then ran out of stock for up to six months.

The Kindle, endorsed by Amazon, sits on a powerful source of content and sales channels. At the same time, in terms of experience, Kindle copied the reading experience of paper books as much as possible, simplifying the function and cost-effective, which became the favorite choice of readers.

Even if it was a contemporary, even if the iPhone and Kindle were not yet popular all over the world, then Apple CEO Jobs looked down on this innovation and mocked before the Kindle was ready to go on sale: "This is a product with no hope, because there will be fewer and fewer people reading books in the future." ”

Fluttered

Great as Jobs, it seems to be a bit of a miscalculation. Later, this reader, which had about 90,000 e-books, was called the "iPod of the reading world" by the outside world.

In the first decade of the 21st century, when smartphones were not yet widespread, the Kindle could beat almost every other small-screen device. Two years later, the Kindle has become the best-selling product on Amazon. By 2010, Amazon's online e-book sales exceeded physical book sales.

From dry-flipping offline bookstores to subverting traditional publishing, Bezos drifted away, and his speech changed from "making all the people who sell paper books unemployed" to "paper books will eventually die", although he did not expect all this.

In an interview, he was asked "Do you think traditional print books will eventually die out," to which Bezos replied, "I think so, though I don't know how long the process will take." But metal movable type printing has been around for more than 500 years and is probably the most successful technique. But no technology will always exist."

Later, the Kindle continued to update and iterate and swept the world, and many people became "die-hard fans" of this black and white screen. In 2011, the peak of the Kindle, 23.2 million units were sold.

In 2013, the Kindle entered China. Although there were some niche in the beginning, word of mouth spread among book lovers. At the time, everyone who owned a Kindle had a consensus that when you picked it up, it was as if you had walked into a secret library that belonged only to you.

In China, the huge population base is the support of sales, and then Amazon China has been releasing new Kindle products in sync with the world, and at the end of 2016, China became the largest market for Kindle sales. In the five years from 2013 to 2018, the Kindle sold millions of units in China.

In the eyes of some literary and artistic youth, the Kindle has always been one of the best gifts to give. Even if it is finally used to cover instant noodles, it is also the most stylish instant noodle cover.

Tears of the times

Kindle, before becoming a product name, its original meaning was "to start burning" or "arouse interest, feelings", similar to evoke, arouse.

At the invitation of Lab 126, Michael Patrick Cronan is said to have given Amazon's e-reader the name. He and his partner, Karin Hibma, see the name as rich in meaning, alluding to the excitement of books and wisdom.

So far, kindle has launched a full ten generations, with a low, medium and high configuration of the version. On Amazon's official website, there has always been a column dedicated to kindle e-books. However, in the Amazon empire with a market value of more than one trillion yuan, compared with e-commerce retail, cloud services, and advertising, the proportion of Kindle is weaker by more than a star and a half.

The Kindle's fall from favor has its inevitability. In terms of hardware, when smartphones and tablets are becoming more and more popular, the Kindle's reading function has more and more replacements, and there are more and more competitors for e-readers, especially when the latecomers have more convenient and advanced features.

As for the content, long and short videos are sandwiched, the rise of live listening to books, and the time to read is repeatedly squeezed by a variety of web surfing, and kindle can only play the residual heat on the bubble noodle lid. And paper books, more or less, still have some emotional foundation.

In the Chinese market where Amazon has lost, the Kindle's dilemma is even worse. Literature and art blogger "Luo Zhiqiu" sighed: "It is a pity that the Kindle device itself does not make money, and its own functional evolution is not as good as other e-book reader brands." In the later period, China's Amazon can only sell Chinese e-books, and the variety and price discount are not as good as platforms such as WeChat Reading. Even die-hard e-book fans like me rarely touch the Kindle, and can only blame the ruthlessness of the big waves. ”

Kindle failed to make paper books die, but it faltered on the road to the new era.

In fact, Kindle has also worked hard, such as releasing a youth version, engaging in co-branding, increasing dimming, and lighter weight and larger memory. Especially in the largest Chinese market, the white version of the Kindle was launched for Chinese users, and the Forbidden City culture and Dunhuang culture joint gift box were launched.

Under the new wave of entertainment and consumption, the Kindle is destined to be difficult to reproduce the highlights of that year. The popular iPod has withdrawn from the historical stage, and the Kindle has only gained some heat in the hot search for withdrawing from the Chinese market.

But the Kindle is still an epoch-making success product, and like the iPod, there's no doubt about it. On the one hand, from physical to digital, it has subverted the cooperative sales model of content and channels; on the other hand, the reading habits of the public have also changed with the popularity of Kindle. Not to mention, Kindle has a huge international copyright library.

As for whether to withdraw from the Chinese market, whether to press bubble noodles or prevent insomnia, that is a matter for Amazon and readers. Anyway, Kindle has achieved its original slogan, "Open the bookstore into the pockets of the public."

Beijing Business Daily reporter Tang Yitian Zhao Tianshu