“Still, if customers preferred smaller hardware costs and higher operating fees, he would still consider that approach. Bezos maintains that Amazon could have sold the DX for $99, but only with a required monthly subscription of $60 or more per month, or by forcing Kindle owners buy a certain number of books each month.

via Jeff Bezos: Why the Kindle Is So Expensive | Epicenter

It sounds like Bezos basically thinks of the Kindle as a smartphone. The difference, of course, is that you very, very rarely will actually use the wireless connectivity on the Kindle. It’s only when browsing and/or buying books (or syncing), and I’d bet the overall bandwidth required for all of that is very small — as in, nowhere near $60 a month.

I have a Kindle. I really like it. But it’s still way too expensive for the average consumer. It needs to be at most $199, and better yet, $99, and then it will take off.