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Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

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Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#221

Post by RHSeeger »

golergka wrote: post #172
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to talk with their wallet to get the message across. There is nothing stopping people from buying a 'dumb' e-reader with internal storage where you load epub/pdf/rtf/txt files that you actually own or borrow from a library.

Like managing your own mp3 library, it's incredibly inconvenient compared to the cloud option. I've done it for years with music, and I'm very happy to just be able to stream whatever I want instead. Same with books.

As someone who doesn't have unlimited data, the number of services that make it very hard _not_ to use the cloud (including Apple, with their "I know you said put this on your computer, but we really didn't, and we'll just grab it from the cloud when you want to play it on your phone" junk) is extremely inconvenient.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#223

Post by hdjdbtbgwjsn »

emteycz wrote: post #216
fakedang wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually sounds like a neat idea from a theoretical perspective, but isn't it how cracks work, and how crack-generators evade that?

They meant for identification of leaker. But IMHO it's useless. Anybody could claim they had their laptop stolen.

Only if they have filed a police report...

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#224

Post by jerf »

beagle3 wrote: post #214
jerf wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As is often the case, a lot of these things are either illegal in the US too, or far less settled than the companies would have you believe. The companies stick them in the license clauses anyhow, because when you can just stick a severability clause [1] in there, why not grab things willy-nilly? Plus a lot of people simply assume there's no recourse even when there in fact is ("the US is an anarchist wonderland wher…

> "the US is an anarchist wonderland where consumers have no protections at all" is a harmful and false meme, what we have is the widespread assumption that consumers have no protections The biggest problem is that the US legal system is incredibly expensive. You can have justice, but only if you tens or hundreds of thousands of $$ to spend and prevail. In theory, everyone can get their day in court and (likely) enjo…

Is the EU actually any better for this sort of case, though? In practice, not just in theory?

I believe the EU has different cost/benefit tradeoffs, but they're still not something to be done casually or easily by a consumer at this scale of damage. For instance, "loser pays" sounds great until you lose. Even if your obligations are statutorily limited it's still not something to take on over, let's say, Amazon restricting access to the 40 books you purchased, to pull an example from nowhere.

The damages in such a case are so low that it's difficult for any legal system to provide a reasonable mechanism for redress. Even if you valuate your time at the local minimum wage, even a small claims court is going to take more time than is worth it for one person. You'll probably be waiting in the courtroom for longer than the value of the books in question.

The real problem here isn't that the US is a consumer rights wasteland when it isn't; the real problem is the huge asymmetrical advantages companies have, in any jurisdiction, in screwing significant numbers of people just a little bit.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#225

Post by blueflow »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #179
blueflow wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use a Kindle by drag&drop PDF files onto it. If you use it like that, there is no need to connect it to the Wifi at all. I use my Kindle like this.

This is news to me, is that really true for all Kindle models? Can you really load files onto it as a connected storage device? Can you point to any amazon docs explaining this? I was under the impression that this was the big caveat restriction with amazon.

I bought the Kindle (model J9G29R) in 2019. When attached to the USB port, it acts like an USB mass storage device with FAT32 on it.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#226

Post by beagle3 »

jerf wrote: post #224
beagle3 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "the US is an anarchist wonderland where consumers have no protections at all" is a harmful and false meme, what we have is the widespread assumption that consumers have no protections The biggest problem is that the US legal system is incredibly expensive. You can have justice, but only if you tens or hundreds of thousands of $$ to spend and prevail. In theory, everyone can get their day in court and (likely) enjo…

Is the EU actually any better for this sort of case, though? In practice, not just in theory? I believe the EU has different cost/benefit tradeoffs, but they're still not something to be done casually or easily by a consumer at this scale of damage. For instance, "loser pays" sounds great until you lose. Even if your obligations are statutorily limited it's still not something to take on over, let's say, Amazon restr…

> Even if you valuate your time at the local minimum wage, even a small claims court is going to take more time than is worth it for one person.

Small claims court awarded "lost time" (in the loser pays) in the few cases I'm aware of. I know of several people who've taken a local retailer to court (Not quite Amazon, but think of e.g. New York's PC Richards and Sons size), and were made truly whole for a $200 case (that is, got their $200 back, and a few $100 more for effort). If these things happen in the US, I haven't heard of them.

> The real problem is the huge asymmetrical advantages companies have, in any jurisdiction, in screwing significant numbers of people just a little bit.

Yes, but situation in Europe is IMHO a bit better, both from the small-courts, binding-arbitration-instead-of-courts looked down upon, and much stronger regulation on rights, like fit-for-purpose, lemon laws, and even things like GDPR.

The bottom line is, regardless what the rules say, a person in Europe suffers, on average, much less than the power asymmetry - although they do pay for that upfront with higher prices (which also pay for other stuff like education and universal medical care - it's hard to untangle, but it's protection that likely isn't free).

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#227

Post by beagle3 »

SilasX wrote: post #215
beagle3 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make the customers of digital goods first-in-line creditors. It's basically goods stolen from people, at the moment of shutting down - they should be first in line. Most companies don't shut down when they run out of their last dollar; Rather, they shut down when they have more liabilities than assets. The result would be that traditional creditors will demand an escrow for that digital data before giving any money (…

Agreed, I've long felt the same way about gift cards. And pensions, for that matter. (Which shouldn't be controversial, but is, at least for the Post Office.)

In most of Europe AFAIK, pensions are in even better status than first-in-line creditors: Money must be continuously deposited to a pension fund, not just an IOU.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#228

Post by BTCOG »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #220

Dumb question, but has Barnes and Nobles been better about their behavior with the Nook? I’m slowly weening myself away from Amazon where I can, but I need options.

They print these paper volumes called books, and I've never once read a book on anything other than in paper, or on my computer. I just walked in Barnes and Noble last weekend and spent $44 on real books. Sure I spent double of what I could have spent at Amazon. I voted with my money. Fuck Amazon.

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#229

Post by dorgo »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #208
slightwinder wrote: post #137

It's really time for laws which forbid companies to terminate accounts and access to them if they met certain conditions like licencing digital properties. Sure, they can restrict them all they want, as long as a fair stance prevails und people are not ripped of their goods. This strong difference in powers between companies and customers in the digital realm becomes more and more a serious problem. When people are s…

>There was a time in Europe when a strong movement for digital rights existed, but to bad it somehow died down. Did it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party

Small parties attract protest voters who switch to something else later (or don't vote any more).

Re: Amazon turned off customer’s Kindle account, blocking her from her books (2012)

#230

Post by SilasX »

beagle3 wrote: post #227
SilasX wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I've long felt the same way about gift cards. And pensions, for that matter. (Which shouldn't be controversial, but is, at least for the Post Office.)

In most of Europe AFAIK, pensions are in even better status than first-in-line creditors: Money must be continuously deposited to a pension fund, not just an IOU.

The US migrated to the system of required pre-funding too, but not with pension priority over creditors. They get dumped on the PBGC.
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