It seems I'm in the minority here, but I really like what Arrington is saying.
People will pay $100-$200 for a dedicated eBook reader. As much as I love my iPad, it does come with a few extra things that one doesn't necessarily need. There's room in the market for a $200 tablet from a consumer point. I have no idea if it makes sense from the manufacturer's point of view, though.
That said, this recently created space [cheaper tablets] has started to be dominated by Android tablets. Can webOS find a place there? I don't know. But I think it will have a greater chance of taking on this market than the $500 range overwhelmingly handled by Apple's iPad.
edit: if they go as cheap as chips and hardware + a little more, they can also have a huge impact on basic tablets used for education, etc. in my dream world, techcrunch somehow licenses webOS and makes the CrunchPad once and for all.
double edit: in the comments someone suggested subsidizing the tablet device to lower its cost and making it up using app sales or a subscription. think game consoles. that would be interesting.
Why will "people" pay that? I know it's cheaper than the kindle. Apart from the novelty factor though, why would anyone pay that much for a device to read books?
I have a 2003 version of an actual ebook reader with a passive screen. If all you are after is an ebook reader I am sure these things would sell for $20 at the most and you could make a happy profit. What a bargain eh?
The problem is that the market is not driven by people's desires, but rather by moneymakers' profits. If we can't make 25%+ on each sale, why bother?
I'm confused, the TouchPad is cheaper than a Kindle, true, but the Kindle has demonstrated that there's a huge market for $100-150 eBook readers. The TouchPad just isn't the right product.
I think a whole lot more people would pay $30 a month for a tablet. If you can just pair that with some seemingly valuable service with a low variable cost, you'd have a winner. How about the New York Times tablet? The Playboy tablet? The ESPN College Sports Tablet? The Spotify Tablet? The O'Reilly Safari Tablet?
People will pay $100-$200 for a dedicated eBook reader. As much as I love my iPad, it does come with a few extra things that one doesn't necessarily need. There's room in the market for a $200 tablet from a consumer point. I have no idea if it makes sense from the manufacturer's point of view, though.
That said, this recently created space [cheaper tablets] has started to be dominated by Android tablets. Can webOS find a place there? I don't know. But I think it will have a greater chance of taking on this market than the $500 range overwhelmingly handled by Apple's iPad.
edit: if they go as cheap as chips and hardware + a little more, they can also have a huge impact on basic tablets used for education, etc. in my dream world, techcrunch somehow licenses webOS and makes the CrunchPad once and for all.
double edit: in the comments someone suggested subsidizing the tablet device to lower its cost and making it up using app sales or a subscription. think game consoles. that would be interesting.