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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

#101

Post by TylerE »

taeric wrote: post #98
eslaught wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 40% cut makes sense in a world where Amazon pays the voice actor. My understanding is that is not how this works. The author pays the voice actor, or the publisher does. Amazon is paying for hosting an audio file, basically, and the development of the player app, and that's it. I think in the very early days, Amazon may have paid all the voice actors itself (because no one was on board with audio yet at that point)…

My understanding is that it will depend on the book? I'd love to see more discussion on that whole ecosystem, honestly. Some of the first searches seem decent to read on. I just know that, even today, the audio books I purchase are far cheaper if I get them from Audible than basically anywhere else. Unless it is a book on CD I get from the library, for obviously different reasons. I also know that things are byzantin…

I remember when audiobooks from the library were literally books on tape. You'd get a giant binder with like 20 cassettes tapes in it. I think the biggers one were also split up, so you could checkout, say, 10 hours worth at a time.

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

#102

Post by CharlesW »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #74
wlesieutre wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> Anybody can spin up a website hosting .mp3s like Audible does.

That's like saying anybody can sell iOS apps outside of App Store. Yes, it's technically true¹ (the best kind), but effectively there's no real alternative, and Amazon knows this and treats creators accordingly².

¹ https://buildfire.com/ios-app-distribution-without-app-store...

² https://www.audiblegate.com/

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

#104

Post by taeric »

dendriti wrote: post #99
taeric wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading online, it is looking more like there are royalty shares. And I'm not clear on how "produced by Audible" works factor in there. Seems silly that the narrator wouldn't also be entitled to a per sale value. I will also ack that I'm all for better legislation to help creators in a lot of this. I just don't know that this all is as clean a picture as you are making it. For an easy example, did audible drop their…

You sure do have a LOT to say about Audible, despite demonstrating here a clear lack of understanding of how the service works, its market position, how much it charges, and so on. JAQing off in defense of a monopolist is a bad look.

I'll gladly laugh and accept the jab that I'm a little too active in this thread. I don't know why this topic got me today, but it clearly did.

That said, please educate me on where I'm giving a clear lack of understanding on how it works. I'm basically seeing a couple big name authors that are effectively telling me I'm a bad person for buying audio books from Audible. But, far as I can see, every alternative is complete utter shite. Except the library, from which I still gladly get audio books on CD.

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

#105

Post by taeric »

TylerE wrote: post #101
taeric wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it will depend on the book? I'd love to see more discussion on that whole ecosystem, honestly. Some of the first searches seem decent to read on. I just know that, even today, the audio books I purchase are far cheaper if I get them from Audible than basically anywhere else. Unless it is a book on CD I get from the library, for obviously different reasons. I also know that things are byzantin…

I remember when audiobooks from the library were literally books on tape. You'd get a giant binder with like 20 cassettes tapes in it. I think the biggers one were also split up, so you could checkout, say, 10 hours worth at a time.

We still have a box of a lot of books on tape we found in a garage sale around here. Had to get a tape player for the kids to listen to them, as they were the kind where they had the books with them, too. Was a ton of fun, if a touch annoying to deal with rewinding the tape and such.

We also still have more than a few books on CD. We don't get as many as we used to, ironically, since it is far more convenient to use audible. Nice to shift from car to bedroom for stories.

I've been curious on why more "music players" weren't better at audio books. I'm guessing the ability to save mid track is just not nearly as big of a deal for most music applications?

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

#107

Post by xavdid »

A slight quibble:

> They require mandatory DRM for every book sold, locking those books forever to Amazon's monopoly platform. If you break up with Amazon, you have to throw away your entire audiobook library.

While it's true that your purchases are tied to your Amazon account, they are not tied to your audible subscription (if you have one). That's a nice touch.

Even better, the DRM is trivially easy to remove. Audible already allows you to download the files you bought and ffmpeg has the `-activation_bytes` flag which will pop the DRM right off. There are sites like https://github.com/audible-tools/audible-tools.github.io to help you find your account's bytes (which you only need to do once; they don't change). Not ideal, but not as bad as it seems.

All that said, support alternative audiobook sources when you can, like https://libro.fm and your local library!

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

#108

Post by bombcar »

taeric wrote: post #105
TylerE wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when audiobooks from the library were literally books on tape. You'd get a giant binder with like 20 cassettes tapes in it. I think the biggers one were also split up, so you could checkout, say, 10 hours worth at a time.

We still have a box of a lot of books on tape we found in a garage sale around here. Had to get a tape player for the kids to listen to them, as they were the kind where they had the books with them, too. Was a ton of fun, if a touch annoying to deal with rewinding the tape and such. We also still have more than a few books on CD. We don't get as many as we used to, ironically, since it is far more convenient to use…

Exactly. You can still find a few devices that did it (often out of Japan, especially minidisk players, for example), but most had no permanent memory or only a few bytes for radio stations, and of course you can't write to a CD.

Many car CD-players handled it just fine.

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

#109

Post by 8note »

lesuorac wrote: post #36
mikewarot wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tech people are only obsessed with routing around DRM... it's management that is obsessed with DRM .

Work at a place that made expensive physical objects. Customers calling in because they could use the objects because they plugged the hardware key into a different machine was all the time ... Like the hardware had to be wired to the computer running the software. An extra hardware key that needs to be plugged into the computer as well doesn't do anything!

This gives me a fun hardware idea:

Make hardware keys that have the shape of real keys, and that you have to turn to engage the USB key.

The key shape isn't security, just a hint at what needs to plug where. You sell both keys and receptacles that can be put into a metal case or an otter box

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

#110

Post by Snarwin »

taeric wrote: post #104
dendriti wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You sure do have a LOT to say about Audible, despite demonstrating here a clear lack of understanding of how the service works, its market position, how much it charges, and so on. JAQing off in defense of a monopolist is a bad look.

I'll gladly laugh and accept the jab that I'm a little too active in this thread. I don't know why this topic got me today, but it clearly did. That said, please educate me on where I'm giving a clear lack of understanding on how it works. I'm basically seeing a couple big name authors that are effectively telling me I'm a bad person for buying audio books from Audible. But, far as I can see, every alternative is com…

I don't think these authors intend for you to interpret their criticism of Audible's business practices as a statement about your moral character. One of their central points is that Audible's business practices have severely limited consumer choice in the audiobook market. You can't be held morally responsible for a choice that's been taken out of your hands.
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