[jad]

> you would think they would market that ability more

Maybe Amazon thinks that if it is obvious, no one will pay up front to have ads removed, and getting more money at the time of purchase is more valuable than future ad revenue.

[bmuon]

Everything on the web points to the opposite. Ads in the long run are always more profitable.

Besides, nothing guarantees that the quality of the ads will stay the same. When I bought my Kindle 4 I reasoned they looked well now because the service is pretty new, but we'll start seeing all the abhorring ads we see on the web soon enough.

[jsnell]

I would be stunned if the lifetime advertising revenue from a Kindle unit was higher than the price to turn the ads off. Isn't it much more likely to be purely a market segmentation thing? Sell the cheap version to the extremely price-sensitive, but get an extra $30 from those who don't really care about the price.