Google’s eBook store will pit it directly against Amazon and Amazon’s Kindle — an enormously popular eBook reader. Amazon sells 280,000 fixed-price titles that can only be read on the Kindle or its iPhone app. Google, on the other hand, stated that it will allow publishers to set eBook prices, which will likely result in a price increase across many titles. But this is what publishers want, and will therefore inspire them to make more titles available via an electronic format.
This is shaping up to become another Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD battle, which had many pros and cons. The biggest con, obviously, goes to the people who pick the losing team and are then stuck with titles and devices that become inadequate or outmoded. The biggest pro is that now we’ll get a multitude of purchasing options, rather than the current, rather limited market.