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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

#71

Post by mtlynch »

taeric wrote: post #64
kmeisthax wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip-side of this is that any author that doesn't agree to exclusivity is just leaving money on the table, because audiobook buyers will not touch alternative platforms unless it's their only option. This isn't because Audible is head-and-shoulders above the competition either. They aren't. They just won the game of Monopoly[0]. [0] Someone should turn on house rules. Or - oooh maybe we could play the unused co-o…

I am curious why you don't think they aren't better than the alternatives? Are they amazing and beyond improvement? Of course not. But most of the alternatives are crap. This is basically the same as the sad affair of enterprise software. The vast majority of that industry is actively bad. Not just not good, but actively bad.

>I am curious why you don't think they aren't better than the alternatives? Are they amazing and beyond improvement? Of course not. But most of the alternatives are crap.

Do you think the quality of the alternatives might be related to the fact that Amazon/Audible is strangling all competitors out of existence with their exclusivity agreements?

Imagine if an audiobook competitor popped up that's a 10x better experience for customers and authors. They'd starve out of existence without major VC backing because even though they're better, they can't bring the sales volume that Audible can, so customers choose the worse experience on Audible with the exclusivity agreement because the total earnings are higher.

Long-term, that's a worse ecosystem for everyone except for Audible.

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

#73

Post by slowmovintarget »

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…

How about Brandon Sanderson's criticism of Audible? [1]

> If you want details, the current industry standard for a digital product is to pay the creator 70% on a sale. It’s what Steam pays your average creator for a game sale, it’s what Amazon pays on ebooks, it’s what Apple pays for apps downloaded. (And they’re getting heat for taking as much as they are. Rightly so.)

> Audible pays 40%. Almost half. For a frame of reference, most brick-and-mortar stores take around 50% on a retail product. Audible pays indie authors less than a bookstore does, when a bookstore has storefronts, sales staff, and warehousing to deal with.

> I knew things were bad, which is why I wanted to explore other options with the Kickstarter. But I didn’t know HOW bad. Indeed, if indie authors don’t agree to be exclusive to Audible, they get dropped from 40% to a measly 25%. Buying an audiobook through Audible instead of from another site literally costs the author money.

What's worse is if the audio book goes into their subscription service, the author gets paid an even smaller fraction, as it is 25% or 40% of the fractional time on the subscription fee.

Amazon built the system to dominate the market, then used the dominant position to bully creators into a teeny tiny fraction of the profits Amazon makes on the work.

[1] https://www.brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2022...

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

#74

Post by cmeacham98 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #45
taeric wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but that was my point on the numbers. As a customer that has several hundred audio books due to Audible, yes, I know that the authors get a smaller cut of the sell than they do if I buy the audio book in a store. But their larger cut of my store purchases is effectively 0. Audible has grown the market to numbers that were basically pipe dreams of the past. To ignore that in the calculation is really dishonest.…

My problem isn't just with the royalty rates, it's making the default rate so low and using it as leverage to push authors into exclusivity contracts. Imagine if Apple started telling companies "You have to pay us a 60% cut, unless you agree to not have an Android app in which case we'll do 30% instead." You could argue that Apple is entitled to make that arrangement because they essentially created the mobile app so…

Bias disclaimer: AWS is my current employer

The meaningful difference between these two examples is that Apple is a gatekeeper to the iOS market.

Anybody can spin up a website hosting .mp3s like Audible does. Nobody can publish an app to the iOS App Store without going through Apple (and Apple doesn't allow alternative app stores or sideloading for consumers).

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

#75

Post by taeric »

incongruity wrote: post #67
taeric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it. I confess I'm largely remembering previous articles that loved highlighting the amount of margin that Audible demands. For the DRM complaint, I'm mostly sympathetic, but I have a really hard time believing it is not at the insistence of the publishing companies. They literally force library lending to go through similar DRM schemes. And it is largely in their interests to make sure you can't purchase the c…

I find it really hard to deny that platform lock-in is a powerful anti-competitive and anti-consumer force - I think you’re off base in denying its impacts and the merits of addressing it.

I largely agree with this take. But I also largely feel I'm being asked to support, who, exactly?

Note that we aren't pushing for removing the DRM. This is largely about someone wanting you to buy from another place. I can almost believe the DRM angle, but publishing houses have shown they are the far larger driver of that than Audible is. This is why libraries have to have a special license to loan out audio books. They are largely looking to force that in ebooks, even.

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

#76

Post by bitwize »

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.

Creators as well. Talk to anyone who works in a creative field that isn't programming. They want DRM. They love it. And the reason why is simple: DRM works. It does the job. It doesn't stop all piracy, but it greatly attenuates it allowing the creators to make a buck. I remember discussing this with a writing group in the 90s, when the first e-readers came out. They vastly preferred the DRM-encumbered platforms because they could make money with lower risk of piracy.

And this is why DRM will never go away. Take DRM away, and creators will just stop releasing things digitally. Programmers in general need to learn to suck it up when it comes to things like this. Without DRM, pirates win, creators lose, legitimate audiences lose.

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

#77

Post by jt2190 »

> [I]t's a Big Tech disassembly manual that explains how to disenshittify the web and bring back the old good internet.

As someone who also loves to "surf" the web and who misses the good old days, I do wonder if it's really in humanity's best interests to have everyone starting at screens all day. There was a time before the web when we thought computers would do all the grunt work, but the last few decades seem like we humans are still needed to push buttons, Copy/Paste, etc. for everything.

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

#78

Post by ghaff »

omgmajk wrote: post #68

Doctorow always has interesting stuff to read, I've been looking at most of his work for years now. The physical book will now be delivered to me when the Kickstarter ends as that's my preferred way of reading. I kinda don't get audiobooks myself, I find it hard to concentrate on the book and often have to pause and go back and re-listen because I zoned out. I guess this is semi-offtopic but I like Doctorow and he ca…

Audiobooks are basically for the (mainstream, ie not hard of hearing) case of having a long driving commute or otherwise spending a lot of time in a car. Doesn’t really work well for books with a lot of detail or figures.

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

#79

Post by taeric »

belorn wrote: post #70
taeric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it. I confess I'm largely remembering previous articles that loved highlighting the amount of margin that Audible demands. For the DRM complaint, I'm mostly sympathetic, but I have a really hard time believing it is not at the insistence of the publishing companies. They literally force library lending to go through similar DRM schemes. And it is largely in their interests to make sure you can't purchase the c…

What other previous articles? As for the last point, that one is not about Audible, so... what are we even discussing here? The article last argument, which is after discussing DRM and monopolies where users are captured into a locked market, is that google and apple has a 30% tax. They don't go into any depth over why a general 30% tax in a third-party market is bad in a duopoly situation, presumably because they do…

I've seen complaints on Audible for a few years, at this point? Surprised if this is news to you. Though, I also wouldn't be too shocked if folks skip past audio book news that don't listen to audio books.

What do you mean the point wasn't on Audible, btw? The article is literally about how he is proud he isn't putting his book with Audible because of DRM? This is painted as if it is a choice of Amazon's, but it is hard not to read this as a choice of the Doctorow's. Perhaps you thought I was referencing someone else's last point? I meant that as a reference to my last point in the previous paragraph.

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

#80

Post by bitwize »

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.

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