Cost of Kindle

David Wertheimer recently did a little cost analysis on reading the New York Times on paper versus on Kindle:

I began to seriously wonder, should I buy a Kindle and switch to electronic delivery? I did a little cost assessment and realized my newspaper is a very expensive habit. The Times, to its credit, gives daily subscribers a break: our papers cost us $11.70 a week (at the newsstand it'd be $17). Factoring in the Monday and Wednesday purchases, and assuming we remember to stop it when we go on vacation, 50 weeks of the New York Times in print costs us $785 a year.

Compare that with the Kindle, which costs $259 for the small version—the pocket-sized, and therefore commute-friendly, one—and $13.99 for a monthly subscription to the Times. After one year, I'll have spent $427, and I'd have a shiny gadget to boot. Heck, we could get a second one for Amy, and after 14 months, our spend would be tied, $910.60 for print versus $909.72 digitally.

Assuming he just buys one, that's a huge savings. In tough economic times, why wouldn't a newspaper addict jump at those savings (and like he mentions, get an awesome techy device in the process).

This could be one of those underlying factors that eventually will shoot even more arrows into the heart of print. Print is definitely going the way of the dodo already, but I think what holds a lot of people back--and thus, keeps print in print--is the "scary" price of buying a new gadget, investing in two mediums just for the sake of having both, etc. E-books in general are not yet well known for their investment quality, and depending how you utilize them, what you get back in monetary value is still a crap shoot. There is always a lot of talk and debate about how e-books change reading habits and twist the context of reading, so the intellectual value and feedback is there, but maybe pricing, economy, and even environmental economics should be just as heavily considered in the e-book debate.

Wertheimer acknowledges toward the end of his post that "the piece of the future that he was willfully neglecting has suddenly come into sharp relief" and the "horizon just got a lot closer." For all those still on the fence--including myself, a little bit--perhaps that future also creeps closer.