With all the recent talk about Amazon’s unfair business practices when it comes to ebooks, and with all the conspiracy theories about what they’ll do next to keep control over people’s ebook purchases, I had an idea that would really make things worse for everybody.
What if Amazon were to acquire E Ink, the company that makes E Ink screens for all the dedicated ereaders on the market? If Amazon did that they could have complete control over the ereader industry.
They could raise the prices of E Ink screens significantly for competing brands, and those companies would be forced to raise the prices of their products or find alternatives, while Amazon could simultaneously lower the price of Kindles.
That sounds like an antitrust lawsuit in the making, but that hasn’t stopped Amazon in the past. And E Ink already holds a monopoly over the epaper industry, so Amazon wouldn’t have to do anything to ensure their continued dominance.
So why doesn’t Amazon just take over E Ink and run the company themselves?
If wouldn’t be the first time Amazon did something like that. Back in 2013 Amazon bought a company called Liquavista that was developing a new color epaper screen technology. People thought Amazon would use Liquavista screens on Kindles, but after 5 years Amazon shut the company down and Liquavista’s electrowetting display technology never hit the market.
Maybe Amazon did that so E Ink wouldn’t have any competition. E Ink and Amazon seem to have a very close relationship. Amazon got an exclusive deal on the 10-inch 300ppi screens after the Kindle Scribe was first released. E Ink probably wouldn’t even be around today if wasn’t for Amazon selling Kindles, and if they were they’d be a much smaller company worth far less.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Amazon were to buy E Ink considering they helped grow E Ink into the company they are today. Kindles are by far the most popular E Ink products on the market. Amazon’s future acquisition of E Ink seems rather likely when you stop to think about it, especially if E Ink were to ever run into financial problems. Amazon would have to step in if they wanted to keep making Kindles since E Ink is the only company that makes epaper screens for them.
You raise an interesting point about Amazon potentially acquiring E Ink to tighten its grip on the eReader market. Given how they handled Liquavista, it’s not far-fetched to think they might make a similar move to eliminate competition before it even has a chance to grow. If that were to happen, it could stifle innovation in ePaper technology, which would be bad news for readers and competing brands alike.
Yes, I would really hate that.
It would mean that new innovations would be limited to Kindle devices, and there would no longer be a choice between Android, Linux and Amazon’s OS based devices.
That is the reason I do not believe this to happen. Liquavista had no products. Acquiring them did not change the market. For E Ink things are different. They are the only provider for a variety of customers, some of which are competitors to amazon (e.g. Kobo, PocketBook, Boox. This would definitely result in an antitrust lawsuit.