Kindle for free in 2011?

I’ve thought several times about purchasing a Kindle. Every time I buy a book, or have to lug a heavy one around I think “wouldn’t it be nice to be able to take a Kindle to the coffee shop”.

I tell myself that the reason I haven’t is because of an irrational fear of loosing the books in some sort of formatting accident, that somehow they’re not as safe. But deep down, it’s because I can’t justify the price to myself: I’m just not rich enough to purchase one to supplement an activity I’m already doing perfectly well.

Which makes a rumour that the Kindle might possibly, one day, be free very interesting. Given away! Actually, it makes a lot of sense. Production costs have probably dropped by now, and if Amazon reckon that they can make enough money from people in book sales (possibly on some sort of contract basis) then it would put a sizable dent in the eBook/iPad market.

John Walkenbach noticed a while ago that the price of Kindles appeared to be falling at a linear rate that almost looks pre-ordained. If this holds, the line would fall through the £0 axis right about… November 2011! This graph (from http://j-walkblog.com) illustrates this well:

It’ll be really interesting to keep an eye on prices during the second half of this year, to see if Amazon really can pull this off. If they can then I think it would change not only the eBook market, but spill over and effect the tablet market too. For a lot of people iPhone + Kindle == iPad.

Michael Arrington at TechCruch has another idea: make it free to Amazon Prime customers. For $79 annually Prime customers get free 2-day shipping. This is a good subset of the market to test out any type of contract-driven freebie, or just give all Prime customers a free one, no strings attached. Arrington notes that in Jan 2010 Amazon offered Prime customers who bought a Kindle a full refund if they didn’t like it…but they could keep it (free by any other means). Arrington has a “reliable source” who says that Amazon wants to give every Prime customer a Kindle, as soon as they can work out how.

So, for now, I’ll be holding off buying any sort of reader, just in case Amazon really can come up with the goods. Gadgets are good, but free gadgets are something much cooler.