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I would rather see my books get pirated than this

janefriedman.com

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Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#421

Post by pavel_lishin »

lelanthran wrote: post #270
VincentEvans wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry for being so flippant and unreasonable expecting to buy a digital book using my smartphone in 2023.

> I am sorry for being so flippant and unreasonable expecting to buy a digital book using my smartphone in 2023. I feel that you are being unreasonable: you willingly bought into a closed ecosystem, and now you're mad that other people are not part of that ecosystem. What did you expect?

How many ecosystems are available, if you want your child to read books on a digital device?

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#422

Post by bpt3 »

dangus wrote: post #400
yonaguska wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's curation in that the products they do offer are generally trustworthy.

There’s a big difference between limiting SKU count to simplify operations and products being curated to be “the best” and most trustworthy options. Natural foods stores have much more stringent standards on things like artificial colors, animal treatment, and use of chemicals. For example, Tide Original is banned in New York for having too much of a cancer-causing chemical. Costco sells it. Costco sells products wit…

No one said Costco offers the very best product in any or all categories.

What they said is that Costco is upfront about what they're selling, rarely sells defective products, and offers a very generous return policy in the (rare) case you are dissatisfied with a purchase.

Those aren't that far off from Walmart or Target, because those are also generally reasonable retailers. I would say Costco offers better value on their products overall.

If you ask more of that from any retailer, good luck finding anyplace to purchase anything.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#423

Post by pavel_lishin »

e12e wrote: post #387
grogenaut wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: go to amazon on a real computer and find book Step 2: click buy Step 3: in the post purchase confirmation it says "Want to start reading right away?" and a dropdown of your devices with a deliver button. It's a kids device they (and you) don't want your kid to be sent 50 shades of gray accidentally. The other flow is buy book. Go to kindle, "sync and check for new items". But again, it's a kids book, don't wa…

> It's a kids device they (and you) don't want your kid to be sent 50 shades of gray accidentally. It's just a book. I'd hope most parents would rejoice if their kid read well enough to get through that, or Mein Kamp.

Found the non-parent giving parenting advice.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#424

Post by grogenaut »

e12e wrote: post #387
grogenaut wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: go to amazon on a real computer and find book Step 2: click buy Step 3: in the post purchase confirmation it says "Want to start reading right away?" and a dropdown of your devices with a deliver button. It's a kids device they (and you) don't want your kid to be sent 50 shades of gray accidentally. The other flow is buy book. Go to kindle, "sync and check for new items". But again, it's a kids book, don't wa…

> It's a kids device they (and you) don't want your kid to be sent 50 shades of gray accidentally. It's just a book. I'd hope most parents would rejoice if their kid read well enough to get through that, or Mein Kamp.

Look I had to pick a title that would resonate with people on what they might not want their kids to read. I'm sorry I offended you that people might want to censor the materials a child might read but it's a very common use case, so much in fact that there have been class action lawsuits against companies like amazon/apple/google/sony/microsoft for not allowing parental controls (and not locking the kids out of buying smurfberries).

And yes, as a parent it's part of my job, and my right, to pick and choose what I think my kid is ready for.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#425

Post by checkyoursudo »

elkhadiy wrote: post #408
red-iron-pine wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But they won't know because when you look for reviews, the review websites will also be generated just for you, filled with AI-made reviews and users. The entire internet will just be a computer that guesses what you want and shows you its best guess as the truth. a little matrix-y. dead internet theory -- the idea that the internet will eventually be mostly or entirely bots talking to bots https://en.wikipedia.org…

Very interesting! Bots roaming freely generating content and manipulating consumers sounds like early stages of the net beyond the BlackWall in the Cyberpunk universe post DataKrash. (just in case someone might be interested in sci-fi reading on the subject)

There won't be any consumers on the net to manipulate though. Our bots will be buying counterfeit junk off of shady e-commerce giants, but at least we will be out enjoying art, sports, and nature, because all the bots will be doing all the work as well anyway.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#426

Post by wombat-man »

cycomanic wrote: post #88
imgabe wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Amazon wouldn't say they didn't know, but that it's not their responsibility. For example if Random House published a book that libeled someone, and Amazon sold it, you would sue Random House and the author for libel, not Amazon. Likewise, Amazon would tell you to go sue the publisher, who is probably judgement-proof in some way.

The better example is a store that sells counterfeit goods (and continues to sell it even after being made aware). In most countries if they are a small shop they get closed down very quickly, now if they are Amazon ... crickets.

yeah, it's such bullshit.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#427

Post by ren_engineer »

macspoofing wrote: post #4

>I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon.…

this is classic monopoly behavior, once a company gets big enough they don't have to care about customer service. Similar reason why Google has such terrible customer service

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#428

Post by checkyoursudo »

prmoustache wrote: post #363
labster wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re in a race to the bottom. There’s no way a company selling legitimate products will be able to compete or grow a customer base in the AI future, because we’ll be swimming in garbage.

People might revert to buy in person. I mean you get scammed maybe twice by a company, then buy somewhere else. You quickly realize that it is better spending 3-4 times the amount of money for something that will last 10 years than buying stuff that do not work or keep breaking after a few months/years. I am too poor to be able to afford buying cheap stuff.

For the most part, I already mostly buy stuff in person. For physical goods, I cannot stand not being able to hold, touch, examine a thing before buying it. Or at least the floor model or the exhibited item.

I bought a VOIP phone from the media store recently. When I was there looking at them, and feeling them etc, I was thinking how there is no way I could have picked the right one from an online shop. I might have never known there was something better, I guess. But being able to hold them helped me pick one I thought I would like.

Re: I would rather see my books get pirated than this

#430

Post by Matrixik »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #393
ianburrell wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice that niche shopping sites don’t have reviews. Bigger sites have reviews but they don’t get gamed. Without affiliates or listing products like Amazon, there is no way for the spammers to make money. I’m surprised that places like Walmart or Target haven’t gotten burned by cross listings. They could drop the program and advertise as alternative to Amazon. If Amazon had “sold by Amazon” filter, it would be a lot…

Amazon (UK, at least) don't even have a working search function, it's ridiculous trying to buy a specific thing there.

I think that's the reason why Allegro is market leader in Poland and Amazon is far, far away. I get really frustrated when I try to find anything on Amazon, sometimes to the point of thinking "how the hell they became so big with this shitty search?". When I search anything on allegro.pl it almost always return me products I search for and support tons of filters (and return actually nothing when they don't have it).
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