Why has Amazon given up complete selling control?
I think Amazon is simply responding to the reasonable complaint that it has been asking potential customers to buy their product without ever having had a chance to try the product. What with iPads available to try at Apple stores, Sony's "everywhere", Nooks at every B&N [but try to get one to work] etc., the Amazon "try without buy" model seems pretty shall we say mean-spirited. Amazon did have a deal where a prospective buyer could go to try it at the house of a Kindle fanatic -- but that seems like a pretty screwy business model too -- even if only from the prospect of liability! Amazon I suspect will still have the problem that no one at Target will know how to sell the product or give a dang, so Apple might have the edge there -- although one might question how much better the teenagers employed at my local Apple store are in practice.