I find Amazon's business strategy intriguing. For one thing, as Beth pointed out on Wired-MT, they offer free Prime memberships to students. How many students, I wonder, are going to like the 2 day shipping, video streaming, and ebook lending and be willing to pay for it after they graduate? And with new devices like the Kindle Fire coming out that will presumably allow really easy use of these services...
I don't think that Amazon is going after library users so much as they're trying to create a really easy and pleasant environment for their customers that will keep them tied to the Amazon marketplace.
A book a month may be enough for their users at least as a start. What they're offering that libraries are unable to is no wait and you can keep it for as long as you want. I've heard a lot of complaints about our two week checkout. And if Kindle customers decide that one book is not enough to sate their reading appetites, they can always buy as many additional titles as they want from the Kindle store.
I think rather than be threatened by this, libraries should watch and learn. We need to be thinking seriously about repurposing our libraries. Seeing our present and future roles as primarily book repositories and lenders digital or otherwise may not continue to be the best strategy.
