Amazon ebook Surcharges #

random, July 14th 2011

What's up with the $2 surcharge on ebooks Amazon applies when shopping from Finland? (Or most non-US countries for that matter.)

My understanding is that this is used to bankroll the Whispernet, which is completely, ridiculously disproportionate.

Since buying my Kindle late last year, I've bought some 60 ebooks from Amazon — paying $120 is surcharges. That's more than enough to pay for a year of unlimited mobile broadband in Finland.

So yeah, I'm feeling pretty butthurt here.

For more on this, see: Amazon Hold Back The Growth Of E-Books Around The World. (TL;DR: $0.99 ebook becomes a $3.44 ebook — and none of the price difference goes to the author or the publisher.)

Since it's highly unlikely that Amazon will do anything about this unless there's a good deal of publicity about this, please consider sharing this.