Catching up

So...for anyone who has been following me, I have fallen really behind in my blog posts. Going to library school, as my family calls it, is more intense than I thought it would be. I've found that I generally have a lot going on in school, and am always thinking about all things library related, but never have the chance to sit down and put them into writing. So here goes my chance at catching up!
     Today I decided to go on to Amazon to order some Christmas presents, and I was met with the announcement that Amazon  has created their own lending library (as they call it) for Kindle owners who have an Amazon prime membership. Having just purchased a Kindle Fire for my dad for Christmas (this is an attempt to get him to use an e-reader so he doesn't have to pack his own library of books when he goes on vacation!), I was really intrigued by this. Of course, it is only open to those who have an Amazon prime membership, which is a clearly defined attempt to to make more money from consumers, but I think the social implications for libraries and the public are very interesting. What would this mean for libraries looking to license books from Amazon? Will Amazon stop licensing to libraries, knowing they can make more money on forcing people to sign up for a membership? I don't think that would happen, because I think that could cause Amazon to lose its competitive edge in a market filled with e-readers. But I look at the library where I work. We have both Kindles and Nooks to loan to people (in library use only for the Kindles, but they can check out Nooks). It is assumed that these people do not have their own personal e-readers, so they come to the public library to use them. If Amazon suddenly found it less profitable to license their material to libraries, these people would never have access to this product, because they certainly aren't going to go buy their own! So Amazon would effectively lose money, despite trying to make more money. So I can't really see that happening. Then again, who knows...