Kindle and Amazon greed

So we recently bought a Kindle (generation3) from Amazon. I was kind of disappointed that I was forced to use Amazon.com, as I usually buy most stuff from Amazon.co.uk, but I got over that pretty quick, especially when the overall price with priority shipping is a wee bit under the UK site converted to Euros.

Today I happened to see an amazon.co.uk suggestion was Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Kindle Edition) for 0GBP, so I went to .com to check, and found out they are selling it for 2.30USD… infuriated, I went to http://www.gutenberg.org and found it for free. Stick that in your pipe amazon!

I think it’s great that they bind the kindle to an amazon account… I just wish they’d have consistent prices for books on all their sites, as well as the ability to buy a kindle book from ANY Amazon site… I mean really, it’s an Amazon product… why not bind it to all Amazon sites?

Another thing that minorly disturbs me is the lack of support for other languages… it’s a great product, and a great idea… but ONLY an English interface? Isn’t there a significant number of Spanish speaking people in the USA? Or is that really the extent of their vision for the product? As a result of our purchase, several other people we know have bought or are planning to buy a kindle, they are hesitant because they are unsure of the interface. Add to that the low albeit growing number of Spanish books available from amazon.com (we’re stuck with it!) and the seemingly high price of said books… I guess they really don’t want to go any further in the global market.