Not only did Australia’s two main print news media organisations reject Amazon’s Kindle book reader, both made their rejection public.
Fairfax went overboard, publishing versions of the story in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and on its youth-focused site, The Vine. It didn’t run in The Australian Financial Review.
News Corporation has been less vocal, although Rupert Murdoch did mention his dissatisfaction with the reader in comments after his company’s annual results.
As this story in The Sydney Morning Herald explains, the problem is Amazon wants to clip the ticket by too much. Some reports suggest the company takes as much as 70 percent of the price of ebook sales and is seeking similar high margins from newspaper subscriptions.
Sony and Apple are possible alternatives. One aspect of this story is the assumption people will want to read online newspapers via a special reader and not with a PC or smartphone.
Kindle Rejected By Australian Newspapers | Fairfax Media, News Corporation.
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