>> "The big question in my mind was whether Amazon would have learned from their tablets and scrapped their closed garden ecosystem and gone for a more stock Android.
In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?"
Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose.
That's also why I don't see a failure of this phone as a tragic event for Amazon. It's just a piece of their strategy that didn't worked out. More like a "big test" gone wrong, than a commercial disgrace. I guess that there will be a write off and a shrug, with no hard impacts on the bottom line.
> In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?"
Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose.
I think the idea is that there's a trade-off between ineffectiveness of this strategy and screw-the-userness, and the parent comment was thinking that maybe they'd realize they should move more down the spectrum towards a better product for the user (i.e. that they were coming on too strong with the lock-in).
Aside from whatever ethical qualms you might have about various degrees of lock-in, it's not unreasonable to think that people didn't respond favorably to the level of lock-in Amazon tried with their tablets: hence the hope that they might try an alternative strategy of lock-in (or another way to promote their products) without sacrificing user experience.
As an example of two points on the spectrum, imagine a comparison between shipping Chrome that only allows Google Search in the omnibox and the way Chrome actually is, which allows you to pick your search engine. Obviously Google is getting some advantage out of even a Chrome browser in which the search engine can be changed, but it's clearly further along the spectrum towards better user experience (and less effective lock-in) than a Google-Search-only omnibox would be.
> In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?"
Obviously Amazon is a content company, but something tells me that they're probably not selling a lot of content to owners of Fire phones, given the pitiful sales figures.
Keep in mind, the history of technology is rife with examples of companies that reduced or eliminated vendor lock in in order to increase adoption; it's not unreasonable to suggest that Amazon might sell more content if they sold more phones, even if those phones were more open.
And you're also completely bypassing my point about prices and margins. Even if you think the closed model is worth the costs for Amazon, clearly they'll sell more content if they sell more phones, and clearly they'll sell more phones if they're cheaper. And they're famous as a company willing to take the long view and sacrifice short term profits for long term growth and market share. Given that, wouldn't it make sense to sell the phones at cost, rather than at Apple or Samsung level margins? Worse, while the Fire ecosystem is closed, it's closed in the wrong direction.
The price point of the phone implies a strategy of "we'll make money on the phone, which people will buy because of our amazing content and user experience". But their user experience is mediocre, and their content is available everywhere. Apple can do that with iPhones, because you have to buy an iPhone to get iOS, a phone with iTunes, and most iPhone apps. But the kindle app runs just fine on my OnePlus One, as do all the other Android apps I might want to install on a Fire, if I had one. You seem to be arguing for a strategy of "we'll make money on our content, which people will buy because they already have our phones". I agree, it's a very promising strategy! But I wonder why Amazon hasn't tried it. :)
In other words the big question was: "will Amazon ditch their only reason to sell hardware?"
Amazon's hardware products are gateways to the paid-for content they sell; they're completely designed -- software wise -- to attend that purpose.
That's also why I don't see a failure of this phone as a tragic event for Amazon. It's just a piece of their strategy that didn't worked out. More like a "big test" gone wrong, than a commercial disgrace. I guess that there will be a write off and a shrug, with no hard impacts on the bottom line.