“Amazon.com, in an apparent switch in its pricing policy, said over the weekend that it will allow purchasers of its new Kindle Fire tablets to pay $15 extra to turn off advertisements that are built into the devices,” Reuters reports.
“Amazon had said the tablets would come with ads known as “special offers” that appear when screens are locked and in the corner of the home screen, helping keep prices low,” Reuters reports. “But criticism of the company mounted in online forums after reports that the company would not allow buyers to pay to block the ads as it had done with earlier tablets.”
Reuters reports, “In an email response to questions from Reuters, Amazon spokesman Kinley Pearsall said only: ‘With Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD there will be a special offers opt-out option for $15. We know from our Kindle reader line that customers love our special offers and very few people choose to opt out. We’re happy to offer customers the choice.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As they planned to all along. An utterly contrived PR move.
Related articles:
Amazon confirms all new Kindle Fire models stuck with ads, no opt-out allowed – September 7, 2012
Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD: Ads on the lock screen, incompatible with all other Android phone and tablet apps and content – September 7, 2012
Amazon takes aim at Apple iPad with larger 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD – September 6, 2012
Amazon announces slew of new Kindle tablets – September 6, 2012
you bet.
reminds me of The New Coke pr bullshit of a few years back…”oh! oh! we want original Coke!” the masses clamored…guess what happened then.
“customers love our special offers”
Just how stupid do they think we are.
I HATE sales people.
BS executives are even worse.
Don’t blame salespeople here. This was a marketing and management decision.
Most “special offers” were coupons for books in the Kindle store. Now, I tend to fiercely hate advertisement, in any form, but to be honest the Kindle ones were not offensive at all. They never interrupted you while you were reading, and were actually useful for discovering and saving money on books.
I ended up rooting the Kindle to disabling ads anyway, out of principle.
Actually a smart move by Amazon. How many people will see the ads, find out it costs $15 to remove them, and say to themselves “Meh, for $15 bucks I can live with the ads.” Amazon hopes to make more in increased sales than they do on $15 turning off the ads.
Still makes it obnoxious though.
Haha, pay more? Haha!
Wait a sec… People who buy Kindles are forced to see ads pop up on their screens — unless they pay extra? That would be a total deal killer for me. Reminds me of all those PC’s that came loaded with bloatware to lower the system prices. As I recall, it was not very popular with users.
Not popular with users? No, no, they LOVE the special offers!
Besides, (as I was told by a Kindle sales person at Best Buy) “the ads only show up on the locked screen, you won’t even notice them”
I’m sure thats why companies are paying good money for that ad.
You won’t even notice them because they don’t show up anywhere else like the corner of the home screen . . . damn!
Which is why Amazon will only report number of devices shipped and not sales minus returns.
“Your call is important to us.”
Someone, somewhere actually believes this shite.
Not to worry… Amazon tablets are LAGGY anyway… So they won’t sell many regardless of how many cores thy have in the odgy tegra chip…
I know this is a crazy concept. But why not sell the kindle fire without adverts at the recommended retail price instead of trying to attract customers with a shit loads of ads embedded in the device.
You know what, just by mentioning ads on the device has put off 50% of their prospective customers already.
NO ONE WANTS ADS! Let alone on a device your paying for!
Jesus these companies are so out of touch – they seriously haven’t a clue!
To be fair, my Kindle Touch has ads enabled (it was $40 cheaper that way) and I don’t mind/notice them at all. They do not seem to alter battery life and are pretty unobtrusive, especially when the device is in my pocket. Now on a Fire with an active, power hungry screen the cost in battery life might be excessive, but we will see.
See also the ZDNet article comparison – http://www.zdnet.com/how-to-decide-should-you-buy-a-big-kindle-fire-hd-or-an-ipad-7000003933/
It is telling that the reviewer in the ZDNet article opted out of buying the latest Kindle after essentially promoting it.
Good for Amazon! Shows they are listening to customers.
Apple how about listening to customers and restoring Save As and letting users turn off Auto Terminate! Are you listening Apple? Amazon is!
It wasn’t that long ago that you could go on the net and not be inundated with ads, now they are everywhere, and getting to be as obnoxious as telemarketers, if not more.
The irony, compared to previous technologies is that:
When you listened to the radio and heard an announcement it was free. It was the same principle for television, commercials were free, minus the minimal amount you paid for electricity to run the device.
On the net however you pay for bandwidth (unless you wam to camp out at some hot spot), so that you pay to receive all those ads. I certainly don’t want them.
The net was such a more functional place when anarchy ruled IMHO.
Like MDN has creds on this topic with their ad taking about 1/2 inch at the top on their iPad app. Anyone know how to root that out?
Remember Amazon’s Kindle Fire is primarily a device used for selling and buying stuff on the Amazon store. When you design a device around this primary goal in mind that’s usually what you end up.