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Kindle Unlimited

amazon.com

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Re: Kindle Unlimited

#121

Post by marpstar »

arafalov wrote: post #66
incision wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Safari heavily and I've been hoping some sort of competitor would come along. It's not that that I dislike Safari, merely that I expect competition would push for a better product. The interface has barely changed in as long as I can remember with the same old clunky flash and limited search. It took years for the mobile app to go from horrendous to tolerable and it remains quite bad. Giving 'Online' the same v…

The interface is being redone. I don't know how they are planning to cut-over though: https://www.safaribooksonline.com/ Edited: They just announced how the cutover will work: http://blog.safaribooksonline.com/2014/07/08/new-safari/

Kind of disappointing that the new service is separate from the existing 'Safari Books Online' service. I'm grandfathered in to the $9.99 5 books/month plan right now. Jumping to $24.99 for a new interface hardly seems worth it.

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#122

Post by beauzero »

I think this is good for "candy books" like thrillers, etc. but for books that I want to keep...no. I don't care as much about movies but for books...this is not for me.

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#123

Post by smacktoward »

jaysonelliot wrote: post #74

I'm very disturbed by the steady erosion of ownership that has been happening for the past few years. Subscription models are an attractive way to get some digital content for a low price, whether it's music, software, movies, or books—but the internet has a notoriously short memory, and I fear that we're condemning ourselves to becoming cultural goldfish. I have books and records from my youth that sit on my shelf a…

I hear you on this, and am in sympathy with your point. But this bothers me less than Amazon selling Kindle books does, because at least this is clearly marked as rental.

All your points are just as true about the Kindle books that Amazon sells to people -- you lose the right of first sale(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine), so you can't re-sell or lend your books; they're tied to a specific DRM scheme; they can be modified or "turned off" remotely without your consent; etc. -- only Amazon charges you a flat fee, as if you were actually purchasing it the way you purchase a physical book, which you aren't. You're just purchasing a limited license to access its content via specific devices.

If they're going to be in the business of only selling limited licenses, I'd rather they do it via a subscription model, where every customer will understand that they'll lose access if they stop paying, than via a model designed to look and feel as much as possible like buying a real book. It's at least more honest that way.

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#124

Post by legohead »

swanson wrote: post #17

I love the idea, but the selection is not good enough (for me) yet. I keep an Amazon wishlist as a "reading queue" and none of the 60 books (technical, business, pop-psych) in it were available on Kindle Unlimited. I usually buy 2-3 Kindle books a month at around $9/per, so I would definitely use this service if the selection improves. I kind of wonder if Amazon could get away with charging $9/month for any book they…

The current series I'm reading and the last series I read are not available.. nail in coffin for me

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#125

Post by eclipxe »

why-el wrote: post #33
leviathan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why, when content is digital and distribution doesn't cost anything extra, things like this are restricted to specific countries.

I am really sorry people downvote you. People please don't downvote for mere disagreement; not upvoting is enough. You are actively discouraging otherwise completely legitimate and sensible questions.

This isn't Reddit. It is perfectly acceptable to downvote out of disagreement, as pg has stated before.

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#126

Post by jack-r-abbit »

officemonkey wrote: post #24
Hermel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's legal, not technical restrictions.

It's not even laws, it's just contracts. Which, if parties were motivated, could be rewritten.

"Please visit us again when it is available in your country." makes it sound like they are motivated to rewrite them. But you can't just rewrite everything at once. I understand the frustration that people outside the US feel when a new service is launched as US-only first but you have to start somewhere. And a US-based company is most likely to start at home and then branch out.

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#127

Post by icebraining »

ceejayoz wrote: post #117
jaysonelliot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Get off my lawn" is an intellectually lazy argument. George Lucas has already famously done repeated "updates" to Star Wars. If it existed only in subscription form, you'd never be able to see the original.

> George Lucas has already famously done repeated "updates" to Star Wars. If it existed only in subscription form, you'd never be able to see the original. Or, you might sign up for a service where access to more than one version is a differentiating feature, and get both for the same subscription price rather than having to buy multiple re-releases.

What makes you think Lucas would grant any service the license to distribute multiple versions?

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#128

Post by otakucode »

smacktoward wrote: post #123
jaysonelliot wrote: post #74

I'm very disturbed by the steady erosion of ownership that has been happening for the past few years. Subscription models are an attractive way to get some digital content for a low price, whether it's music, software, movies, or books—but the internet has a notoriously short memory, and I fear that we're condemning ourselves to becoming cultural goldfish. I have books and records from my youth that sit on my shelf a…

I hear you on this, and am in sympathy with your point. But this bothers me less than Amazon selling Kindle books does, because at least this is clearly marked as rental. All your points are just as true about the Kindle books that Amazon sells to people -- you lose the right of first sale( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine ), so you can't re-sell or lend your books; they're tied to a specific DRM sche…

Well, Amazon TELLS you that you lose the right of first sale. That has yet to be tested in court. EVERY industry (seriously, try to find one this isn't true for) has tried to kill the secondhand market in their particular corner of the economy. And every. single. one. of them failed utterly. Digital goods purveyors are going to fail just as spectacularly. It will require lawsuits, of course, but eventually digital property will be respected as actual property.

Right now, when you purchase a digital good, you are quite literally paying for nothing. You're giving money to a company and basically asking them to do you a favor and give you access to some content. Nothing in the "license" you agree to obligates them to actually provide you with ANYTHING. It conveys absolutely no rights to the purchaser and, just as importantly, places absolutely no obligations on the "seller". As it currently stands, it's basically just a giant sham with consumers acting in good faith and waiting for some CEO at Amazon or Apple or Barnes and Noble or somesuch to try to eke out a little more quarterly profit by doing something like requiring consumers to pay more to unlock content they already "paid for".

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#129

Post by icebraining »

dingaling wrote: post #119
gdilla wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, because those books have rights to be sold in your geo. OR, your account is based in the US (billing address).

I think the OP's point is some subset of the Kindle ebooks are already available in his locale, so why not roll-out this service for those titles?

Probably because the license they have to sell those titles doesn't allow them to rent them on this service.

Re: Kindle Unlimited

#130

Post by rdl »

listic wrote: post #120
tjdetwiler wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it's a technical book? There are very few novels I'd pay even $10 for.

That's a pity, too, from the writer's point of view.

$7 to the writer for a fiction work is pretty good, IMO. There's probably no way you're going to achieve that otherwise. (I'm part of the "fuck the legacy publishers" camp; I do care about compensating writers and some editors, but in general, I'd rather pay less, read a lot more books, and have writers paid more, and fewer useless NYC publishing house employees playing games and acting as gatekeepers.)
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