They’ve put the cash register in your pocket, Amazon has, and it is shiny and compact and beautiful. No, the Kindle Fire is apparently not a great tablet, but that isn’t the point. Jeff Bezos’ willingness to sell each Kindle Fire at a loss let’s you know that his goal is to ensure you are able to make impulse buys no matter where you are, that you will always be at a check-out line, that you will load up on media. You can do these things with your laptop or your phone, but no previous tech item has been as aggressive as the Fire in regard to ancillary sales. The razor will be cheap, but the blades will be expensive. From Rebecca J.Rosen’s new Atlantic piece:

“There is one thing, however, that the Fire seems to excel at: Being a store. As Jon Philips writes at Wired, ‘Indeed, the Fire is a fiendishly effective shopping portal in the guise of a 7-inch slate.’ And that’s no surprise, since it’s been known for quite a while that the Fire is a loss leader, meant as a gateway to other Amazon purchases.

But with Amazon as one of only four companies competing in the Great Battle to Rule Our Digital Future (Facebook, Apple, and Google being the three others), the Kindle Fire is our best and latest clue as to what Amazon’s vision for that future is: The Internet as a store — and that store is Amazon. As Amazon continues to increase its offerings beyond Amazon.com, expect those offerings (tablets, e-readers, apps) to always in some way have the growth of Amazon.com’s sales as a fundamental purpose. “

Read also:

• Alan Kay designed a computer tablet in 1968.