The 5th generation kindle came out in ... 2012. That's a pretty good run.
I own books approaching 100 years old. 14 years is pretty sad
Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
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Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#22This kind of stuff is why I no longer use a kindle. I use a kobo which IMHO is not as good of a product but it's worth not supporting this behavior.
Where do you buy your e-books? I've stuck with Kindle, but that's 80% inertia (Amazon has most books, the device works well enough) and 20% existing library is Kindle e-books.
Kobo has a bookstore that’s pretty comprehensive - I haven’t found anything missing. Not sure that gets you out of DRM land, but at least you’re not giving money to Jeff Bezos.
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#23This kind of stuff is why I no longer use a kindle. I use a kobo which IMHO is not as good of a product but it's worth not supporting this behavior.
Because Amazon stops supporting devices after 14 years ? (while they can still be used to read books already downloaded) Really?
In my post I said "this kind of stuff" which also includes their DRM policies (which is the real reason they are ending the users' kindle support).
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#24Man, Amazon is really going above-and-beyond to cripple the last bastion of Kindle devices that carry a DRM scheme we can crack.
I hate Amazon more because than most people, but let’s be realistic. These devices came out in 2007-2012 14-19 years is a respectable lifetime for a handheld electronic device.
It's still unnecessary e-waste given that they work fine for their intended purposes.
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#25I don't approve of a company shutting off network service for a device it sold, but... If this is a hint at much more formidable DRM coming out, could a silver lining for authors and publishers be more sales? Or is mass piracy going to just continue, full steam ahead? (Authors and publishers need any bit of good news they can get right now.)
Long ago, for a few years I would occasionally buy ebooks from Amazon when it was trivial to strip the DRM with basically my credit card number and a script.
Once they started trying to lock things down further, I completely stopped buying, moving to piracy mostly, and occasional scanning of physical books.
Being more technically capable than typical, I’m hardly a normal customer to try to target, but the way I see it all this does is piss off the minority who care and are capable of getting around restrictions. Those who don’t care or aren’t capable will just continue getting cluelessly fucked over as always. These measures less about effectiveness, and more like a money themed emotional support affirmation for someone in a suit. It helps them feel like they are accomplishing something, but that’s it.
I haven’t checked lately, but I expect that “AI” tools that easily and accurately rip and format data from a picture feed of a screen will become the way to go for bypassing whatever clever encryption schemes come along. This also has the benefit of ignoring the steganographic tracking data hidden in paid files, making piracy ultimately easier for the uninformed. This sort of thing was always possible, but was a bit janky and laborious.
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#26I don't approve of a company shutting off network service for a device it sold, but... If this is a hint at much more formidable DRM coming out, could a silver lining for authors and publishers be more sales? Or is mass piracy going to just continue, full steam ahead? (Authors and publishers need any bit of good news they can get right now.)
How do you imagine DRM can possibly protect text?
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#27Man, Amazon is really going above-and-beyond to cripple the last bastion of Kindle devices that carry a DRM scheme we can crack.
I hate Amazon more because than most people, but let’s be realistic. These devices came out in 2007-2012 14-19 years is a respectable lifetime for a handheld electronic device.
its a device for reading text ffs
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does stronger DRM lead to more sales? It was my impression that actual studies were at best pretty mixed.
Anecdotal: DRM actively discourages me from purchasing digital goods.
Yeah but HN commenters are not a representative sample of the ebook consumer base
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#29I don't approve of a company shutting off network service for a device it sold, but... If this is a hint at much more formidable DRM coming out, could a silver lining for authors and publishers be more sales? Or is mass piracy going to just continue, full steam ahead? (Authors and publishers need any bit of good news they can get right now.)
Long ago, for a few years I would occasionally buy ebooks from Amazon when it was trivial to strip the DRM with basically my credit card number and a script. Once they started trying to lock things down further, I completely stopped buying, moving to piracy mostly, and occasional scanning of physical books. Being more technically capable than typical, I’m hardly a normal customer to try to target, but the way I see i…
Same here - I'll only buy books I can read on any device of my choosing. Kindle+dedrm was an option. https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/p/drm-free is another option I have used a lot. But if it's not available, I will go to the modern day library of alexandria. I will not pay for crap that will just stop working in a few years - a book can sit on my shelf for 15 years before I get around to reading it.
Re: Kindle to end store downloads and registering for 1st-5th gen kindles in May
#30Man, Amazon is really going above-and-beyond to cripple the last bastion of Kindle devices that carry a DRM scheme we can crack.
I hate Amazon more because than most people, but let’s be realistic. These devices came out in 2007-2012 14-19 years is a respectable lifetime for a handheld electronic device.
The device still works. It's being crippled on purpose.