Paying a wholesale retail price for every subsidised rental is obviously a hit to Amazon's bottom line (though currently, given restricted access to the programme, this is likely to be relatively contained) and shows retailer's commitment to the aggressive push for the Amazon Prime subscription and the Kindle device ecosystem. This is not the first time Amazon has adopted a loss-leader strategy for ebooks (or indeed other digital content - e.g. MP3). At Kindle ebook store launch Amazon has offered retail ebooks at sub-wholesale prices, however, the major publishers were quick to enforce an agency pricing model (whereby publisher, not the retailer, sets the price and the latter gets a fixed cut) which has effectively ended discounting for high-profile titles. Importantly, publishers' opposition to book subsidising (retail or rental) is not only about the erosion of margins (after all, Amazon has always conceded with the wholesale prices set by the publishers) but also a concern the erosion of the perceived value of the content in the eyes of the consumer - what the industry believes was the pitfall the music industry has fallen into.

As previously discussed, subsidising content to drive a hardware ecosystem is a move Amazon have taken out of the Apple book, although Amazon has characteristically been a more aggressive discounter, over a wider range of content, than the Cupertino based company. Launching a content service without content rightsholders support is also something Apple have done when they first launched the iTunes music store in 2003 before concluding the negotiations with the Major Labels.

Amazon's decision to pay publishers a retail wholesale for rental stands in marked contrast to a number of initiatives to enforce the 'first sale' doctrine on digital content (e.g. Zediva launched a 'remote' DVD rental service whereby Zediva streamed online movies it owned physical DVD copies of) or to create a resale market (e.g. 'used MP3' services such as Bopaboo or, more rencently, ReDigi). Virtually all companies attempting to exploit a copyright law loophole of this type were taken to courts and have gone under or were forced to drastically change their business models.

Overall, the ramp of the increasingly comprehensive Amazon Prime proposition offering 'free' access to TV shows, movies and books bears similarity to the strategy of constant content and feature list augmentation employed by pay TV operators. Moreover, just like most pay TV operators, Amazon is also offering 'basic' introductory level packages - tasters of a limited set of features of the full scale Amazon Prime subscription: 'Amazon mom' offers parents and caregivers access to free expedited shipping but none of the content access features; similarly, 'Amazon Student' offers six month free expedited shipping for students.