Jeff Bezos
The Kindle e-book reader currently sells for $360.
So one day, Amazon could be selling more in digital downloads than in physical goods?
Sure.
At least when it comes to media.
Right. I'm certainly thinking of media. If you asked me, "What product category has surprised you the most?" I would tell you shoes. I can't believe how many shoes we sell. And I don't think shoes are going to get digitized anytime soon.
Can the music store succeed without devices designed specifically to work with it?
I think so. One of the things we are doing is making sure the Amazon MP3 store has a good set of [software links] so that any device can interoperate with our store. That would have been a very difficult strategy to do with DRM [digital rights management, or copy protection]. Because our store is completely DRM-free, it really can work with any device.
Videos are not DRM free. Does that raise added hurdles for that business?
To computers it is not an issue, if you want to watch on PCs or Macs. If you want to watch on a television, right now we have arrangements with TiVo and also with Bravia. Over time, that will get worked out. But it is certainly more complicated right now. There are fewer devices. I think, though, if you look just a few years into the future—I don't know how far into the future you have to look, but I don't think it's very long—most new televisions are going to come with built-in Internet streaming.
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