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Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

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Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#51

Post by Jiro »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #29
CharlesW wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only Cory seems 1,000 more pragmatic. And although he's often a hypocrite¹ and I'll roll my eyes very hard every time I read the word "enshittification", I admire that his goal was to create a "shovel-ready" book with actionable advice and look forward to reading it. ¹ https://imgur.com/a/TAltXUf

> and I'll roll my eyes very hard every time I read the word "enshittification" Why? It seems like a good description that accurately describes the behavior and is reasonably obvious on first reading.

It's a horrible name. It obviously implies that something is being made shitty, but it fails to say what or how. "Enshittification" could just as easily mean "the process by which your computer fan gets clogged with dust" or "the process by which rice loses vitamins when you cook it too much". It's like calling it "bad stuff" except with more profanity.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#52

Post by layer8 »

pixelatedindex wrote: post #6
taeric wrote: post #5

I have a hard time getting behind some of these criticisms of audible and the like. Its annoying, as I am against most DRM schemes out there. But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. A ridiculously large portion of "tech" is perfectly fine with sending copies everywhere. Is literally how many of us get our operating system. Music files and shareware copying were huge before the internet. Mod f…

I actually think Audible is pretty good. I would feel better about buying from them if it wasn’t fully owned by Amazon. Are there any good alternatives out there?

I use https://audiobookstore.com/.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#53

Post by boomboomsubban »

diatribist wrote: post #26
I_am_tiberius wrote: post #13

I find it awesome that Cory writes you personally when you pay for the book.

How would he manage to do that for thousands of people?

I am not sure what they're referring to with that post. The kickstarter sells a personalized signed copy of this boom at about twice the price.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#54

Post by boomboomsubban »

inhumantsar wrote: post #39
leashless wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps this Boing Boing situation is part of what inspired Doctorow to the enshittification insight!

Except he was one of the key people behind it until a couple of years ago

Presumably he left for a reason.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#55

Post by kam »

flir wrote: post #30
brookst wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BoingBoing is the worst of the worst enshittification. All of the problems that the theory predicts, plus a sanctimonious tone like they're somehow above all that. They've become the annoying religious proselytizers who show up unsolicited, and are drunk to boot.

A few years back they were one of the big voices sounding the alarm about electronic voting. Now, according to them, that's an alt-right conspiracy theory. Not gonna lie, that annoyed me.

They stopped sounding the alarm because they largely won that battle: The previous electronic voting machines everyone objected to had no paper trail and there was no way to verify that they were trustworthy. Modern electronic voting systems count paper ballots, and a recount can verify them by hand.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#56

Post by taeric »

thfuran wrote: post #50
taeric wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is your worry for the authors, for other platforms, or for customers? I'm very sympathetic to all of these concerns, at large. However, as things are done, many authors will make the most money by agreeing to this contract, and customers get the cheapest option there. The only people actually getting hurt, right now, are the other platforms. To paint this in any other way is not at all honest. And that is the par…

>But is your worry for the authors, for other platforms, or for customers? Yes. Shitty practices from a market player with significant monopoly power are bad for all of them.

So you can show that authors are getting less money in this environment? And, despite me being able to trivially show that I paid less per book than any offered alternative on the table, with the exception of the library, you claim I'm getting a raw deal now? We can even add in performers and others doing the recording to this question.

Obviously, I only have the numbers on what I paid out. If you actually have the others, I'm game to hear what those numbers are. And no, you can't just say, "they would have gotten a larger cut in the other marketplaces," as I am literally asserting that Audible is the largest marketplace because they grew it. A smaller cut of the much larger marketplace is the point. (And in real terms, the cut is smaller for Audible, too.)

It is funny looking at the benefit of libraries to customers, as guess who is also trying to kill library's ability to loan out audio books? (They already have to do some silly license purchase shenanigans.)

Again, if you are worried that they will "turn bad in the future," realize that I can change my mind in the future and agree they are bad. Right now, most evidence is that they are instrumental in growing the market.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#57

Post by artichokeheart »

taeric wrote: post #5

I have a hard time getting behind some of these criticisms of audible and the like. Its annoying, as I am against most DRM schemes out there. But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. A ridiculously large portion of "tech" is perfectly fine with sending copies everywhere. Is literally how many of us get our operating system. Music files and shareware copying were huge before the internet. Mod f…

Did you actually read the article linked? There was no mention of margins. I question the motives of your comment. It reads like big tech bootlicking.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#58

Post by TylerE »

taeric wrote: post #21
CharlesW wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But to pretend those came from "big tech" is laughable, at best. I'm curious about how old you are. Tech's obsession with DRM (then called "copy protection") started in 1975¹, and IIRC as of the late 70s/early 80s basically all software of note had DRM. ¹ https://archive.is/b8rK9

I'm old enough to remember it has almost always been publishers pushing drm. And yes, I remember serial port keys that tried to lock cad software. Some were keyed to physical sectors on hard drives.

Anyone who works with music software, to this day, deals with the pain of physical hardware keys. A few of the software players are moving from that to cloud based drm… which is at least less annoying since it doesn’t tie up a previous USB port.

It’s called iLok.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#59

Post by TylerE »

taeric wrote: post #41
aedocw wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on what you are looking for from an audio book, there are options. If you expect essentially a professionally made radio production of the book (multiple voice actors, effects, etc) then a real audio book is hard to beat. On the other hand if you just want to listen to the book being read, check out https://github.com/aedocw/epub2tts ... It does not sound as good as a pro human, but it's not far off in my o…

I actually have a few narrators that I prefer now. I think they get less of a cut than the authors do, but are still doing quite well for themselves, now.

I’m just glad we’re past the point of 80% of fiction being narrated by Scott Brick, the most boring and monotone narrator ever.

Re: Kickstarting a book to end enshittification, because Amazon will not carry it

#60

Post by TylerE »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #24
pixelatedindex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think Audible is pretty good. I would feel better about buying from them if it wasn’t fully owned by Amazon. Are there any good alternatives out there?

libro.fm is an option for buying books. You can purchase a subscription or buy individual books. Some of the money goes to support local bookstores, so that's kind of neat. They're also not Amazon, so that's kind of neat, too. I'm a big fan of the Libby app, which you can acccess through your local library. If your library subscribes to the service (and it's likely they do if you live in the USA), then you just need…

Just because a library subscribes to libby doesn’t mean you nessesarily get it. My local system does, but they went for cheapest plan that only includes children’s books.
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