Thursday, March 26, 2015

E-Readers and the Economy

Samantha Grosberger

Mrs. Straub

Economics

24 March 2015

E-Readers and the Economy

Reading is a national pastime, one that’s been around for generations. Books are a way for people to learn about different topics they’re interested in. Students, especially college students, spend thousands of dollars a year to get the books they need for their classes. Consumers will access books from their local libraries, or go and purchase books from local bookstores or big-chain bookstores like Barnes and Noble. The act of reading is one that’ll continue to be popular, yet in recent years, new methods of reading like the e-reader have changed the economy and the way that people access the material they enjoy.
When consumers think about the easiest way to read, picking up a book seems like the simplest one. What can be more easy about just picking up a hardcover book, opening it, and beginning to read? Although some may think this, producers of something called “e-readers” have revolutionized the act of reading. An e-reader is a piece of technology that consumers can use to read instead of having to have a book. It doesn’t seem very extraordinary, yet they’ve radically changed the way consumers can read. The opportunity cost of e-readers is infinitesimal for consumers; they can cost as little as $80 for an Amazon Kindle and hold up to 1,500 books! If someone adores reading and wants to have as many books as possible, this is a wonderful way to do it.

E-readers aren’t just a great new technological advancement due to the capacity of books they can hold. For the producers, they’re very beneficial as well. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Windows, and other companies have made millions of dollars in profit from these e-readers, especially as newer versions come out. For example, Amazon started with the e-reader called a Kindle, available for sale on November 19, 2007. Since then, there’s been new versions seemingly every year. Consumers can purchase a Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, Kindle Voyage, or their Kindle Fires. The Kindle Fires are e-readers, yet they have tablet capacity as well. Consumers can choose from four different type of Kindle tablets, a Kindle Fire HD 6, HD 7, HDX, or HDX 8.9. A classic economic law comes into play here, the law of supply. The price increased with each version, so consumers provide more goods of the e-readers. This has occurred with almost all sellers of e-readers, but Amazon specifically has seen this with their Kindle Fires. According to Business Insider, Kindle shipments have almost doubled between 2011 and 2012.
                           
E-readers have changed the economy throughout the year, yet there are certain times where this increases. The law of demand occurred during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, when Amazon Fire sales tripled and Kindle sales quadrupled in 2014, according to GeekWire. The price being lower will make people buy even more. Although e-readers haven’t been around as long as printed books, they’ve made huge progress in terms of becoming popular. New features, different versions, and larger capacities for storage keep making e-readers better than ever.

Works Cited
Bishop, Todd. "Amazon: Fire Tablet Sales Triple and Kindle E-Reader Sales Nearly Quadruple on Black Friday." GeekWire. GeekWire LLC, 1 Dec. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Carnoy, David. "Best E-Book Readers of 2015 - CNET Magazine." CNET. CBS Interactive Inc., 14 Jan. 2015. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
Cocotas, Alex. "Kindle Shipments Slip, But Still Point to Amazon's Potential Mobile Strength." Business Insider. Business Insider Inc., 29 May 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
"The New Kindle Voyage E-Reader Is Shockingly Good (Hands-on)." Youtube. Youtube, 17 Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.










13 comments:

  1. This bring ups a very good point, but what will happen if the demand of them starts to go down slowly because, once you crack the screen then its cracked. With a book it doesn't have to be cracked or anything. The only worry you have about a book is losing it. The price of the e-book is a lot higher than a book, but you still have to buy the books of the online store. In a way how are you wining or saving money from this path. I do agree that an e-book is nicer and easier to hold and have along with you, but how do you end up saving money as a consumer?

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  2. Though I'm more of a paper and ink type reader, I agree that e-readers are more efficient for people who want to have more books available to them. I can see why they're popular too; space saving and cheaper in the long run, where there's an initial price and a small fee per book rather than 15-20$ per hard copy book. Something I'd like to see though is maybe a comparison between e-book sales in the recent years and the sales of regular books; have people not been buying as many as they used to? Has it changed at all, just a little, or alarmingly so? Otherwise this is a really interesting topic! Nice visuals, too!

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  3. I like how you talked about what kinds of things you can use now instead of reading books and how they have effected the economy. It would be nice to know how much a kindle costs as well as how much books are on them. I know that some are free but others you have to pay for. I would like to know how much money is possible to save from buying one and how much paper is saved as well.

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  4. If we had a production possibilities curve that compared the production of books to the production of e-readers, I wonder how far along the curve we would have moved toward e-readers. There are a lot of e-reader units, but that amount is still probably small in comparison to the large number of physical books we produce each year. Also, the tradeoff between e-readers and physical books seems steep, since the resources used to make book and those used to make e-readers don’t seem to have much overlap.

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  5. I can see this from both perspectives because I own an e-reader as well as many physical books, and they both have their own unique positives and negatives about them. I agree that the e-readers allow avid readers to be able to take their library wherever they travel instead of just one or two of their paper books. E-readers also allow people to buy books from the comfort of their home instead of going to a store. It will be interesting to see the economic impact the e-readers will have as we move forward, because it is easy to see why someone would rather buy a $10-$15 book instead of a $100 e-reader and then continue to buy more books off of that, but the fact that they can be used for more than just an e-reader has its own interesting appeal.

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  6. I agree with the topic, because as the college years go on everyone needs more books because of the classes that they are taking. Also these days books aren't really cheap especially with the economy that we have. Instead of Spending more money on books consumers tent to buy them online because they can get a better price for the books.

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  7. Responding to Alex's question, I think you can save money as a consumer because while the price of an e-reader seems expensive, the price of e-books is slightly less than what a paper back costs. You can get a book online that is only sold in hardcover form for the price of the paperback book. The quantity demand of e-books will rise because consumers want a lower price. Also, you will not have to buy storage for any books, they will all be accessible on your reading device, which will also save you money.

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  8. I can see why e-readers would be convenient for many consumers because the device can store so many books. I don’t own an e-reader but I think that it is a cool device. However, what happens if you lose the kindle? Do you end up losing all of the books as well? It is easy to see why the demand for the e-reader has been increasing so much.

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  9. There are people out there that would find it more convenient and easier to carry around an e-reader than an actual book, but some also wouldn't want to have to wast money on an e-reader then pay more money for the book they want to read when they could just go to the store and buy the book cheaper. Also not only do people want to buy the newest e-reader so they are able to read but they want to buy things that are cheap and new, so if the e-reader people mark their prices lower then more people will buy that instead of a hardcover book.

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  10. You bring up an interesting topic, Samantha. The evolution of technology has certainly had and will continue to have an impact on realm of book-lovers. Sadly, your assumption that reading will continue to be as popular as it has been in the past may not be entirely true. With a surplus of new entertainment technologies, I could think of a number of people who, as a trade-off, would watch television or browse the internet rather than pick up any piece of literature. While a decrease in the demand for books is highly possible, at least this technological adaptation will make reading a more convenient activity for many.

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  11. The demand for e-readers keeps on rising. Even our public library has a program where you can borrow e-books on your e-reader through the library. The program is still in it's infancy and not many people know about it, but it does show how much the demand for e-books is rising.

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  12. this is a very interesting topic it makes sense why people would rather purchase a e-books instead of an actual print book because it is easier to carry around and is going to end up being cheaper in the long run. Although this might help some larger companies such as Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Windows the increased demand of e- books could hurt other smaller book stores.

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  13. E-Readers are great and convenient in that they can come with backlighting to read in the dark or poorly-lit places, can hold hundreds of books at a time, and are easy to store and carry around. However, for me, the marginal benefit of holding a traditional paper book is far more than the convenience of an e-reader. What I usually end up doing is buying the iBooks version on my ipad because it is cheap and quick, and then later purchasing the paper copy if it is really good. However, as society transitions to a technology-based lifestyle, e-readers seem to be a rather popular and lucrative industry for producers.

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