Amazon’s $79 Kindle will kill the paper book

Perhaps not yet. There’s still some life left in paper books, especially specialist and educational titles, but the writing is on the page for the old technology. The end will come sooner than anyone expects. Amazon’s bargain-basement Kindles are electronic book readers for the masses. With the company’s undoubted marketing muscle, user database and reputation for service and no-quibble returns, sales of ebooks will now rise exponentially. Growth has been phenomenal over the past two years, but ebook readers still remain a niche market. After today, that is no longer the case.