Some people seem to be missing the point about "why Amazon would do this and 'cannibalize' itself". Here's why - yes, some people are going to pay the $10 a month, and read 5 books a month, and those will be like 1 percent of their e-book customers. The vast majority, if switched to this model, would pay $10 a month, and only read 2 books a year. The rest, will keep buying ebooks just like now, so nothing will change from that perspective.
I'm guessing Amazon has enough data to know that this will end up profitable for them. In a way, it's just like Prime. Some probably order a ton of stuff every month, becoming unprofitable Prime members for Amazon, while others only a couple of year, yet still pay $99 a year for free shipping.
It's only like any other "unlimited" deal out there. Some customers will be very unprofitable as they will take full advantage of the "unlimited" offer, but the vast majority of the customers will more than make up for it.
That was the argument for music subscription services. $10/month for practically-unlimited music sounds bananas on the surface, but they're making more money than the 2-4 albums a year most people bought back in the glory days of CDs.
Nobody who reads two books a year is going to sign up for this service. Only people who read more than $10 of books per month are going to sign up.
Unlike prime, heavier users don't bring any additional revenue with this program. Prime members spend hundreds of dollars more per year than non-prime customers.
Plenty of people (such as myself) find themselves buying several actual hard-copy books a year only to read two or three of them. It's definitely not rational -- maybe call it aspirational.
I'm guessing Amazon has enough data to know that this will end up profitable for them. In a way, it's just like Prime. Some probably order a ton of stuff every month, becoming unprofitable Prime members for Amazon, while others only a couple of year, yet still pay $99 a year for free shipping.
It's only like any other "unlimited" deal out there. Some customers will be very unprofitable as they will take full advantage of the "unlimited" offer, but the vast majority of the customers will more than make up for it.