>Layman here, but what you describe sounds very much like innovation held back by patents
It's not patents, it's economy of scale: LCDs ship billions per quarter and are used in phones/watches/laptops/PC monitors/TVs/car-dashes/coffee-machines/fridges/kiosks/etc etc etc, whereas e-ink screens are used in e-readers, supermarket tags, e-notes (stylus tablets), and basically nothing else.
When LCDs ship orders of magnitude more SKUs, they inevitably have lower costs. That's just economics.
Besides which, Amazon ships Kindles at-cost, there's no way they'd be price-gouged - if E-Ink tried to screw them then they'd buy E-Ink Corp. It wouldn't even be the first passive display company they bought. See: LiquaVista.
>Could you share more detailed what those hard limitations might be?
The ink in the e-ink needs to be shuffled up and down with each refresh, but if they're pushed too quickly then they pound the capsule they're in and damage it, or get permanently stuck. Either will break the display. And it's powder not a solid object, so the display needs to move all the ink, down, or you'll have ghosting.
> Besides which, Amazon ships Kindles at-cost, there's no way they'd be price-gouged - if E-Ink tried to screw them then they'd buy E-Ink Corp. It wouldn't even be the first passive display company they bought. See: LiquaVista.
Imagine you own E-Ink Corp. You know Amazon needs your screens. You can sell them the screens or you can sell them the company but you can price-gouge them either way. (Of course E-Ink Corp is a stock corporation. The ability to price-gouge amazon is priced in. There's no reason to assume Amazon would save money by buying the company.)
E-Ink has patents specifically on Microencapsulated Electrophoretic Displays, not on passive displays in general. Amazon doesn't need E-Ink, it's just their first preference. I phrased it poorly.
It's not patents, it's economy of scale: LCDs ship billions per quarter and are used in phones/watches/laptops/PC monitors/TVs/car-dashes/coffee-machines/fridges/kiosks/etc etc etc, whereas e-ink screens are used in e-readers, supermarket tags, e-notes (stylus tablets), and basically nothing else.
When LCDs ship orders of magnitude more SKUs, they inevitably have lower costs. That's just economics.
Besides which, Amazon ships Kindles at-cost, there's no way they'd be price-gouged - if E-Ink tried to screw them then they'd buy E-Ink Corp. It wouldn't even be the first passive display company they bought. See: LiquaVista.
>Could you share more detailed what those hard limitations might be?
The ink in the e-ink needs to be shuffled up and down with each refresh, but if they're pushed too quickly then they pound the capsule they're in and damage it, or get permanently stuck. Either will break the display. And it's powder not a solid object, so the display needs to move all the ink, down, or you'll have ghosting.