This explosion was cool overnight, who did you hit?

After all, it's still here.

On June 2nd, Amazon Kindle service number issued a statement:

Amazon will stop the operation of the Kindle electronic bookstore in China on June 30, 2023.

In the past ten years, from "reading artifacts" to "instant noodle artifacts" to the top of the top ten useless products of the year of idle fish, Kindle has been exhausted in China, and the ending may have been doomed. No one was surprised.

Except for a small part of reading enthusiasts and fans of Kindle, not many people pay attention to it.

However, if you look back at Kindle's more than ten years of development, we may find:

Behind Kindle's almost fateful exit, it is not only a short -term business competition, but also a fight for attention related to each of us.

What we lose is not an electronic reader.

What we remember is not Kindle.

Epoch -making year

2007 is a year worth remembering the global Internet.

This year, domestic Internet companies such as giants, Jinshan, Ali, etc. have been listed.

Shi Yuzhu wore a white sportswear he usually worn and became the first person to knock on the bell without wearing a formal clock.

His unique confidence comes from an online game called "Journey". It allows countless young people in the country to immerse themselves in Internet cafes all night and recharge the "Journey", just to compete for a "emperor" in a virtual world.

Lei Jun, who had been in Jinshan for 16 years, was not happy at all. He just felt a sigh of relief, and he could do something that really wanted to do.

With a sense of frustration, he reflects on the opportunities that have been lost in the Internet over the years. Until one day, he re -opened the "Silicon Valley Fire" that shocked his soul during college, and then wanted to understand one thing: real entrepreneurship, we must know how to "follow the trend".

People finally stopped attacking Ma Yun's appearance, and even the "Fortune" magazine, who had always been cold, wrote enthusiastically: "The little man with a child -like smile seems to be standing on the top of the world."

Online shopping has begun to become the mainstream consumption method of society. A person in a small city in the four -line city, as long as you open Taobao, you can choose the clothes you want to buy at will, order one click, and then wait for the courier to arrive.

Only Ma Yun's old opposite Zhou Hongyi gave Ma Yun two advice. First, don't be too floating and easy to fall. But no one seemed to care about it at the time.

Of course, the most sensational thing in the world was left to the man named Jobs.

That year, the iPhone was born, and Jobs spoke in three minutes to shock the world. No one has ever thought that mobile phones can look like this. It is like a butterfly in the Amazon tropical rain forest in South America. It fanned a few wings, and then caused a huge tornado in Texas.

Looking at it, whether it is an enterprise or an individual, it seems that the whole world is in the carnival of games, shopping, and chasing dramas.

Only one person is different, he is the then Amazon CEO of Bezos.

In November that year, Bezos released an e -reader in a small venue with only about 100 people: Kindle.

Perhaps the people of that year had been used to surprise, so the release of Kindle not only did not sway any water flowers, but was too ugly.

The ruthless bad review comes from Jobs:

"There is a problem with the concept of e -books. It is not important for this machine to be good or bad. It is important that people are no longer reading."

Kindle is here

It turns out that Jobs also looked at it.

After the first generation of Kindle was listed, it was snapped up in just 5 and a half hours. In three years, the sales of digital books on Amazon Global Platform surpassed traditional books.

On June 7, 2013, the first day of the college entrance examination.

After the first language test, netizens couldn't wait to start the college entrance examination composition on Weibo.

On the same day, a newly registered new account @Kindle China quietly sent a brief message, and it was also equipped with a blessing word with a strong Chinese flavor:

Kindle is here.

At that time, most domestic people's understanding of Kindle still stayed in the interview two years ago in the interview:

"Kindle will never be successful in China. Let Amazon's Bezos also come to China to start a business and give him $ 2 billion, and he can't burn a kindle."

The reason for Liu Qiangdong, two words: piracy.

But these two words exactly point out a major chaos in China's digital publishing market that year.

Among them, the most famous incident was a lawsuit of Hanwang Technology and Zhonghua Book Company.

In 2008, the boss of Hanwang Technology became the face of dozens of media, and scolded the cottage e -paper book as a robber, and must be committed to protecting intellectual property ...

In the second year, the Han King was sued by the Chinese Book Company for infringement and claimed more than 4 million yuan.

This lawsuit lasted for two years. Although it ended in the victory of Hanwang Technology, it triggered a major debate in the e -book industry and the traditional book industry.

And this famous lawsuit is also known as the "First Case of Digital Copyright in China".

In this sense, we should thank Kindle.

Because in 2013, Kindle came with a huge and international copyright library. Kindle not only has a very fast update speed, but the original English library inside has allowed any domestic electronic library to compare.

You know, many domestic e -book websites at that time were in the original English version, and the earliest works were works 50 years ago.

The benefits of Kindle are too much:

For the first time, many publishers knew the issuance concept of "Paper Synchronization"; the genuine e -book genuine charging model has received great promotion in China; many publishing institutions have set up a digital publishing center in order to cooperate with Kindle, and in e -book It has obtained tens of millions of income per year ...

At the end of 2016, China has become the largest market for Kindle's global sales.

Jason Merxki, who had worked in Amazon, was regarded as a great invention of the 21st century as the iPhone in his book "Burning Book". He said:

"Kindle here does not refer to the device itself, but a concept, a mobile reading terminal that can be compatible with all books.

After Kindle, other reading devices later lived up and improved many functions, but the basic design functions were transplanted in Kindle.

In terms of reading, even the appearance of iPad depends to a large extent on Kindle. "

Attention

Kindle's stage show in China is undoubtedly successful.

However, in an era of rapid change, it is easy to succeed, but it is difficult to continue. You don't even know when failed and why.

As in April 2014, when Microsoft announced the official acquisition of Nokia, the words that Nokia CEO said:

"We didn't do anything wrong, but I don't know why we lost."

In 2013, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially sent 4G to the three major operators. One year later, the three major operators successively opened 4G business to the public. Many personnel discovered later that this was actually a sign that marked that China officially entered the 4G era.

What follows is the popularity of smartphones and application software that emerges everywhere.

More and more people are playing mobile phones on the subway and buses. Many people have noticed this phenomenon, including Zhang Yiming, who was under 30 years old at the time. He felt that there should be a tool for people to watch the news at the fragmented time.

Under this goal, he gradually had an idea -to be a future -oriented information distribution platform.

This is today's headlines.

Later, today's headlines not only brought daily headlines, but also brought news that yesterday and the day before yesterday. It invented the concept of "information flow" and also made the "algorithm" deeply rooted in people's hearts.

Everyone thinks that this is the pinnacle of the information age.

No one would think that the greater excitement was still behind.

2016年，一名叫做@刘西籽的人，在网上随手发布了一个“搓澡舞”的视频。

After seeing the person in charge of an unknown short video platform, I felt very fun. They adapted the dance and paired with music. On their own platform, it launched a challenge for the entire network.

A few months later, a large number of videos about "bath and dancing" suddenly appeared on the Internet- "Bathing Dance" fire.

By the way, I brought this video software that was unknown, and it was Douyin.

Then, with the magical music and dance, the cool picture, the vibrato has grown rapidly, reaching the domestic App Store in one fell swoop ...

The short video era is here.

On the last day of 2016, Luo Zhenyu put forward a concept in the New Year's Eve speech of "Friends of Time "-

Total time.

He said that if all the current content and entertainment products are attributed to the same competitive track, it is essentially grabbing users.

This is an almost accurate summary about the era of the rise of smartphones and mobile Internet.

The person in charge of Kindle in Amazon China once told the media: The original intention of the design of the Kindle Paperwhite reader was only one-

Let consumers experience the purest reading, and only to the extreme of reading.

Just as Bezos named Kindle for this electronic reader, it was the meaning of "fire and lighting" it contained in it.

However, in an era of fast food, high -frequency, and superficial content, it is difficult to keep people alerting to this shallow level of pleasure, let alone serious immersive reading.

In these years, a disease is very popular, called "lack of attention." Many people suddenly discovered unknowingly that it was difficult for them to sit down quietly and focus on doing one thing.

Data show that today a person will look at the phone about 6 minutes, and it will be brushed 150 times a day.

It was brushed away with our valuable attention.

The immersive reading represented by Kindle has become an anti -human thing and is destined to not last long.

Just like the recent fire movie "The Universe Instant Universe": "Every universe is shouting to compete for your attention every moment. Fragments, contradictions and confusion ... "

On December 23, 2021, Xianyu announced the 10 second -hand products that have been traded in the past year. Among them, electronic readers ranked third. The ending of Kindle seemed to be doomed. However, in this context, we not only saw the winner, but also the most regrettable thing was ourselves.

"People without ideals are not sad"

On June 2, 2022, the Amazon Kindle service number issued a statement:

Amazon will stop the operation of the Kindle electronic bookstore in China on June 30, 2023.

There are a lot of ridiculous sounds: I finally exited, isn't WeChat reading fragrant?

Indeed, WeChat reading that can share, like it, and even do mission -receiving discounts is indeed more suitable for Chinese users than Kindle.

However, for reading this alone, do you really need so many functions to cater to your usual social habits?

not necessarily.

Kindle's iterative innovation in functional is indeed very few. From the launch of the first generation of Kindle, there have been almost no major changes in 10 years.

The biggest constant is that Kindle can only read.

However, this once highly selected advantage has now become the shortcomings of people abandoning it:

It used to choose it because it was able to read; now abandon it because it can only read.

Kindle has not changed, we have changed.

Maybe Jobs's words are finally right.

But at least during the period of Kindle, it truly maintains the reading habits of some people, allowing them to retain the basic ritual of reading in this fragmented information era. Essence

Douban netizen@also clearly remembers the day of the first Kindle in life.

It was August 17, 2017, his 19th birthday, his parents gave him a birthday gift.

At that time, he was going to the university outside the province immediately, thousands of miles away from home. Parents hope that this gift will allow him to read thousands of books while reading thousands of books, not only looking at the world, but also thinking about the world.

For four years in college, he was like the silhouette image of the scholar under the tree.

He has read a book on Kindle called "The Lord of the Secret", and likes a setting of "anchor":

Everyone needs a "anchor" to remind themselves what kind of person is, and "anchors" to fight against this chaotic world.

For him, reading is the "anchor".

In order to thank Kindle for his companionship over the past four years, he wrote this gratitude into the university graduation thesis and said:

"Although my papers are not worth mentioning, boring and boring, but thanks is flesh and blood, it is the most wanted to say what I want to say in the past four years."

Unlike@与 与, another Douban netizen@与 与, more sad.

As the first batch of Kindle's first generation of electronic readers in China, she witnessed the 10 -year journey of Kindle in China.

Nine years ago, the first Kindle Pagewhite she bought in her life has been retained until now.

She said that in the long lonely time, she always brought a Kindle with her to nourish life with books.

But after sadness, she was also pleased to the return policy and process of the Kindle device, and she felt that it was a kind of kindness.

Two years ago, she had a similar feeling in 2019.

At that time, she received a close notice from a bookstore that she often went to, and the boss said that she would retreat the money left by the membership card.

It was her favorite bookstore in Shenzhen. The owner has a good taste. The shop is decorated with ancient elegance, and from time to time, there are also movie viewing activities in the store. The deepest impression was that Woody Allen's "Decoding Love" in the shop was in the shop.

She thinks the bookstore is as kind as Kindle. Before leaving, she still remembers the membership to the end.

She has always believed that readers should be kind, otherwise, books are also read.

On the day when I received a call from the bookstore, she didn't do anything, but just sat at home and listened to the "No ideal people who were not ideal" for a day of the new pants band.

The lyrics sang over and over again:

"My favorite bookstore,

She failed to survive this summer.

Recall the text flowing with nostalgia,

But there is no good nostalgia.

But those dream you used to,

It has become blurred. "

- END -