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by GuB-42 2365 days ago
Amazon doesn't make that Kindle $20 cheaper, it makes the ad-free version $20 more expensive, or at least, that's how I see it. That's more about market segmentation than the actual value of ads.

Even if we assume ads are nothing more than an annoyance with $0 value, the "with ads" version may still be beneficial to Amazon. That's if people with a lower budget tolerate ads and those with a high budget don't. If they only sell the expensive ad-free version, they will lose the low-budget customers, if they sell the ad-free version at the with-ads price, they lose money from people who are ready to pay more. Ads here are just a market segmentation tool. Just like it is common for low end products to be the same as their high counterparts but with disabled features.

2 comments

What about your experience on the Internet leads you to believe a company would value ads at $0?

Can you point to another Amazon produced product where they achieve segmentation by making the same product and then disable features on the cheap one?

> Can you point to another Amazon produced product where they achieve segmentation by making the same product and then disable features on the cheap one?

Prime video, amazon fresh. i believe the latter is no longer available outside of Prime. I think Prime shipping itself also counts here, given the changes over the years.

Edit: spelling

Hulu more than doubles their subscription price to hide ads. Do you really think that they're making less net revenue per subscription from ad-viewing users than ad-free ones?