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Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

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Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#201
post #58

FWIW the Apple News app has an incredible number of Magazines and Newspapers. News+ $10 monthly subscription is a solid deal.

I has the same problem as outlined higher up: it moves money from the newspaper to the tech moloch, that can then exert control over the news. The paper will be forced to "popularize" its article stream (Did Aliens Invade the White House?) to the detriment of free news gathering and democracy, all for 30 silver coins.

The problem is a lot of the papers and newspapers want more money for a subscription to one single magazine or newspaper than the entire Apple News+ subscription.

And especially the newspapers already dropped their content quality decades ago before things like Apple News or the Kindle even existed.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#202
post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was mind blowing to me. I can understand games did not become much cheaper by being electronic-only (though it did give rise to much cheaper indie games) but like 16 years ago when Kindle came out, I thought paperless books would slash the consumer prices by at least half. Turns out the publisher just increased their margins.

This is where used books win, and why physical books need to exist. I will never purchase a digital file for $9.99. I have however purchased PDFs directly from the writer's website, usually for no more than $5, which is OK.

>I will never purchase a digital file for $9.99.

License

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#203
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was it they changed about Music?

If you use it through your Prime subscription you can now only listen to their playlists. You can't specify a specific album by a specific artist.

Prime Muzak, iow.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#204

Reminder that Calibre [ https://calibre-ebook.com/about ] has the ability to send news sources directly to your Kindle, handles news sources that require a subscription like the NYT [ https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html ], as well as literally any RSS feed. The only thing Calibre needs is a better UI, but that's not too different from most OSS projects. It is better than anything Amazon could ever hope to offe…

How is the data going from Calibre to the Kindle itself? Do you need to keep Calibre running on a machine that's also using the same wifi connection as your Kindle? Does the data get sent using the Kindle email address? Somehow through a Calibre server? I was curious how this is done and couldn't find any information on the Calibre website. Thanks.

So, I haven't used my Kindle for a while, and the last one I have is a 2nd gen, but the options I know:

- Plug in your Kindle on your PC, let it sync manually. Calibre has an option to know if it already synced or not, and will automatically start the news sync the moment you plug it in.

- Send it through the email address. This does require Calibre to be running _somewhere_, on your desktop, your laptop, hell, even a phone port would be a great idea.

There might be things on wifi, but I've sticked to these two options. There's no Calibre server to speak of.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#206

It is depressing how little Amazon cares about the Kindle, a device that would have seemed utterly magical 25 years ago as the internet matured, is just a low margin monopoly it maintains.

They obviously care about the Kindle a lot with respect to reading books. They have regularly designed new hardware and the hardware has gotten very good and very affordable.

The book side seems awesome. Magazines and newspapers have always just kind of sucked, and a lot of that is on the magazine and newspaper companies, not on Amazon. Why should Amazon pour money into it if sales are terrible because the Magazines and Newspapers sabotage the whole thing? The subscriptions & sales will never take off as long as it costs more than going to the website and the content is incomplete compared to visiting the website. And the navigation will always be more clumsy on the kindle. It makes for a perfect storm for content that you navigate around more than a book.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#207
post #54

They need to at least provide an option for other publishers to also get their content on the kindle, other than Amazon’s own subscription service. Otherwise they are using an advantage in one market (devices) to obtain an advantage in a different market (online content). The EU will eat them alive if they try that anti-competitive behaviour.

They can by sending it to your Kindle email for that device. Instapaper does this to send you your saved items.

Good to know. So it’s just a free tier that’s being removed? That seems fair enough

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#208
I built a service for reading RSS feeds on your Kindle in their newspaper format. As far as I know, I went the farthest compared to any competing service in terms of reproducing the format exactly with the highest fidelity and full feature set (it required a lot of time and stubborn effort to reverse engineer it).

https://omreader.co

Unfortunately it seems like they are discontinuing support for using the Send-to-Kindle functionality for .mobi files and I hadn't really been able to devote attention to it given some other things I had to attend to so it's now defunct.

If anyone has anymore information on the status of loading .mobi files onto a Kindle, I'd be interested to hear about it.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#209

If you have an Overdrive Library subscription, you can try checking its magazine section to see if your library subscribes to the magazine(s) you read. Locally, my Library has Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, etc. It used to also have The Economist, but that appears to have recently vanished. For subscriptions to SFF magazines, try WeightlessBooks which offers subscription to a number of magazines [1] [1] https://weig…

> For subscriptions to SFF magazines, try WeightlessBooks which offers subscription to a number of magazines

No Asimov's at first glance. Asimov's do offer a non-amazon electronic subscription through some other web site, but it looks like it's only readable through their app. If I go off Kindle, I might as well go DRM free.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#210
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this idea a lot, but the size of many of the books I read constrains me. I can slip the kindle into my pocket when going on an errand and read while waiting in line, etc. A physical book -- even a "pocket" book -- would necessitate some sort of carrying vessel. Similar for magazines. I did subscribe to print issues back when I spent long times commuting on a train because I could just as well bring a print iss…

I'm not the person you're responding to but I'm the same as them, having gone back to physical books. I don't take books with me on errands, I read saved articles on my phone. Going on holiday I make a small selection and just have to live with that restriction. It doesn't feel like a particular problem because I've made the conscious decision to do it. There are trade-offs, but for me they feel worth it. The upsides…

These are more or less exactly my reasons.

Last decade I more or less binged on books. I was chasing some useless metrics like number of books read. But COVID induced mass isolation made me take things easy and go slow. Since then I've learned to enjoy the process of reading and I realised physical books enable exactly that. So I don't feel like losing out if I'm not reading when I'm on an errand or I've some free time on my hand. Now when I step out I just absorb the surroundings and if I've to wait out somewhere I just wait without doing anything.

Also, I've reduced my range of interests from about 10-12 to 2-3 and I simultaneously read 3-4 books to get different viewpoints. And I take it real slow. I go a few days without reading any page it's totally cool. It helps me absorb and internalise the content slowly and thoroughly.

And I'm really enjoying the process of re-building my physical library because this time I'm doing it more deliberately.

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