
The first step: The iBooks Store and the Kindle Store, supported by Amazon and Apple respectively, will accept Bitcoin as a currency.
First, although it is possible that Amazon or Apple would want to take strides toward accepting digital currency as an alternative form of payment for their products, it is doubtful they would do so anytime soon.
Will Amazon accept Bitcoin for e-book payments?
For Amazon, this could be a negative. It would reduce its ability to rely on below-cost pricing for its Kindle Fire product as a competitive advantage against other Android-based tablets and possibly reduce Amazon’s overall revenue from selling digital content below an acceptable level for shareholders.
Amazon is not apt to want to do anything that would jeopardize its revenue stream from the sale of digital content in a way that could drastically affect shareholder value. That’s especially true if it ends up lowering prices below an acceptable level for shareholders who have historically been willing to accept lower margins on their Kindle Fire sales in exchange for the ability to tap into a much larger market. You can check websites like this trading Platform, to learn more about bitcoin trading.
Will Apple accept Bitcoin for payments?
For Apple, whose revenue is already growing at a much more balanced and sustainable rate than Amazon’s, this may not be so much of an issue. However, if Apple ever did decide to consider accepting Bitcoin as a form of payment for its digital content, it may do so only as a way to try and stimulate demand for its devices.
Even with increasing competition from Google’s Android, Apple still derives much of its revenue from selling hardware products. However, suppose it wanted to increase device volume without significantly impacting pricing for those devices. In that case, it might consider adding this payment option to its digital retail and content distribution systems.
And some argue that Apple hasn’t yet officially recognized the importance of accepting payments using NFC technology. It is already in place on some Android devices — or adding this payment option to any of its products, likely, Apple would at least want to wait until such an option became standardized.
Several proposals range from open sources, such as the one proposed by William Gee, to more closed proprietary approaches like the ones being promoted by PayPal and others. Which of these — if any — will be adopted is still anyone’s guess; however, you could probably expect Apple to wait and see which gains the most traction and then adopt that standard once it becomes widely accepted and -deployed.
Five reasons why people eventually buy e-books with Cryptocurrency
- Amazon has been hacked recently, so people will get more aware of security issues and choose Cryptocurrency instead of Amazon gift card or debit card payment option for their purchases.
- Amazon periodically changes the rules on content distribution and prices of e-books. As a result, it may force many customers to use alternative e-book stores that offer better deals with Cryptocurrency than Amazon to pay for their purchases using Cryptocurrency at those online e-book stores.
- Cryptocurrency price is expected to rise in the future. Hence, people prefer to spend it on products that they may appreciate compared to FIAT money like USD or EURO, which has no chance of increasing its value anymore. And the best products for that are e-books available from online e-book stores.
- Crypto-skeptics who have no plan on using Cryptocurrency might still buy e-books with it just because it is a novelty. However, they may get curious to see how it works in practice, so they will start spending more of their crypto-money on products offered by online e-book stores, including paid e-books.
Before, they were not spending any money on e-books because they did not see any reasons to do so before. They might also spread the word about Cryptocurrency and its advantages among their family members, friends, etc., thus promoting the idea of accepting Cryptocurrency as a form of payment for products more widely.
- Some people are just looking for ways to use their Cryptocurrency without worrying too much about its current price, so they may decide to spend it on products that have a good chance of increasing value over time. And the best products for that are e-books available from online e-book stores like Amazon Kindle.