After a week of pure hype, people are actually receiving and using their Amazon Kindle e-book readers – the consensus? Not surprisingly to me, not good. Robert Scoble’s comments read like a customer who has been duped. In his 6 points (all negative) about the device, he uses the word “sucks” in no less than 2 of them and throws in a “lame” for good measure (his video is even better).

While quite a few of Scoble’s points the average user might not care at all about (no social network, no ability to gift books – actual and digital – to other users), that highlights one of the main problems with the Kindle. The people who know about it and can afford it – the well-off must-have-it-first tech buyers like Scoble – are going to be pissed off by the things they’ve come to expect from their other devices that they all have like the iPhone. Meanwhile the average consumer who this thing might be better geared toward is not going to pay $400 for such a device.

Amazon is making the same very basic mistake Sony did for the past year with the Playstation 3. Your device could be great or it could suck, but at the end of the day if the price isn’t right, it really doesn’t matter. Sony is finally understanding this now as their price cuts have led to big sales increases (shocking, I know), but Amazon, after the initial buyers hype wears off is going to head for the same rut.

Amazon would no doubt point to the success the iPod had at a similar price, but that is another fatal error on their part, comparing the Kindle to the iPod. Since the advent of the Walkmen people have demanded the ability to carry around more and more of their music with them at all times – the portable CD player gave the consumer more – then finally the mp3 player gave the ability to have a complete library with you. I don’t know of anyone who feels the need to carry around every book they own with them at all times. I’ve yet to hear of a case where someone wants to “shuffle” through excerpts of their books like they would through individual tracks on an iPod. They’re two completely different animals with different purposes and different uses.

Again, that’s not to say that at maybe $100-150 the Kindle might be a very interesting buy. Yes, like Sony with the PS3, I’m sure Amazon would be taking a big loss to sell it that low (though if you read Scoble’s comments the thing needs to be redesigned from scratch anyway – as he puts it: “Did they hire some out-of-work Microsoft employees? … Whoever designed this should be fired and the team should start over”), but also like Sony, Amazon has a lot more at stake here than just moving a product. They are trying to revolutionize an entire industry (just like Sony was trying to do with Blu-ray in the PS3), sometimes you have to something crazy upfront to reap backend rewards (like another company did).

For now the Kindle appears headed for kindling (I’ve just been waiting to use that since I heard the name last week – [update]: NameWire has some more insight into what appears to be an all-around bad naming choice by Amazon). The ridiculous idea of charging users for RSS feeds might actually be the least of their problems.

[by the way, the title for those who don't know is from Wayne's World]