How Wireless Net Neutrality Could Kill Kindle Business Model

Pure Network Neutrality could have a downside. A case in point may be Amazon's highly successful electronic reader, the Kindle.

Content can be delivered to the reader wirelessly, but users don't pay for the wireless service. The tradeoff is that there are strict limitations on what travels down that wireless stream to the Kindle. That is a very different business model than what AT&T is doing with the iPhone or what Verizon is doing with the Droid, argues Peter Suderman, an associate editor with Reason Magazine in Los Angeles. "It's a business model that relies, in fact, on discrimination," he said. "You can only get certain things through your Kindle." "In theory," he continued, "a very, very strict version of Net Neutrality, taken to its extreme, could, in fact, outlaw, or at least make it very difficult, to operate a business service like the Kindle."