

Kindle Fire content

Whenever something new comes along, be it a gadget, tool, vehicle, or detergent, the first bandwagon that every writer jumps upon is the “will new X kill current market leader Y?” It’s hyperbolic and linkbaity, and almost completely impossible to predict, but still, it’s always an interesting angle to take. For example, there have been no less than four tablets and operating systems that could have killed the iPad, but so far none have.


1. Content; Amazon has more of it

Touting something like 18 million discrete, downloadable or streamable songs, movies, and TV shows, Amazon definitely has a comparable amount of content to iTunes — but when you factor in e-books and magazines, Kindle Fire simply stomps Apple into the ground.

Apple isn’t a distribution company — and it famously makes almost zero money from iTunes — while, for Amazon, distribution is its forté. Publishers and broadcasters made deals with Apple purely because they had the audience — but the fact that you still can’t stream content with iTunes, while Amazon has already secured streaming licenses for music, movies, and TV, is indicative of the clout that Amazon has.

If the Kindle Fire is a commercial success, you should expect Amazon to very quickly overtake companies like Netflix and Hulu, and if it gets into the music player business, even iTunes.

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