Alright, I'm always harping on the need for innovation (and entrepreneurship) to get us out of our economic doldrums. So much so that I'm not even going to bother linking to my old rants--if you've read me before, you need no reminder of my views. I usually harp about the lack of innovation, and how consolidation of industries limits competition and drives down the overall level of innovation, thus essentially screwing the consumer.
This is not one of those times. This is awesome:
This is the second major announcement by Amazon this month, following on the heels of their "
free streaming video for Amazon Prime customers" offer
(admittedly it's limited to select titles, but I've watched Syriana, Man On Wire, and Exit Through the Gift Shop for free this month, while paying only a combined $5 to rent The Fighter and The Prestige... and I've gotten $300 dollars worth of products, including a propane grill, shipped to me for free. Yeah, I'm an Amazon Prime fanboy--so be it).
Amazon is one of the few companies that I truly admire right now. They've got brains, they've got guts, and they truly do try to innovate and provide value to their customers in creative new ways. Their products (and their site arrangement) might not be as pretty as their competitors, but they're every bit as functional, and in some ways better (most notably, they don't "protect" their audio files like iTunes does so that they can't be played on non-Apple media players, which is bulls**t). And their prices can't be beat.
Ultimately, I admire any company with the stones to take on both Netflix and Apple in the same month. Maybe it will work out for them, maybe it won't--but any company that stared down the dot-com bubble burst and survived isn't a company I'd bet against.
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