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Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

niemanlab.org

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Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#11

Post by DoingIsLearning »

mdavidn wrote: post #2

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

> They don't publish in an offline format for laptops. I don't own a tablet.

The conclusion to draw is that you clearly don't own your ereader either.

I mean DRM does not stop those unwilling to pay. If the only achievement of DRM is to annoy the people who are willing to pay, i wonder if it likely increases rather than reduces piracy. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to be served an open epub with your magazine subscription.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#12

Post by HyperSane »

mdavidn wrote: post #2

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

Can't you use the Kindle app on your laptop?

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#13

Post by kaishiro »

mrwh wrote: post #3

I had to read the email I got about this several times because it didn't seem to make sense. Hang on, my New York Times subscription is going to end in September and then... that's it? The Kindle is wonderful for reading newspapers on, and now - what? And why? I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change. I'm also sure that I've never seen a deprecation so poorly communicated.

"I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change."

Call me jaded, but the older I get the less faith I have that this is actually true.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#14

Post by no_butterscotch »

emodendroket wrote: post #6
sohkamyung wrote: post #5

If you have an Overdrive Library subscription, you can try checking its magazine section to see if your library subscribes to the magazine(s) you read. Locally, my Library has Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, etc. It used to also have The Economist, but that appears to have recently vanished. For subscriptions to SFF magazines, try WeightlessBooks which offers subscription to a number of magazines [1] [1] https://weig…

To my mind a significant part of the value proposition for the Kindle edition is you don't have to do anything and it just gets delivered to the device.

ah yea this was going to be my follow-up to the post you replied to, can I use the library app(s) (Overdrive, Libby, Axis, etc) to subscribe to new editions of these mags as they arrive at the library?

...the obvious answer from a business standpoint is of course for the magazines to not allow this, but I'm not going to remember to go look at some edition

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#15

Post by mdavidn »

HyperSane wrote: post #12
mdavidn wrote: post #2

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

Can't you use the Kindle app on your laptop?

I don't see how this helps? If I could get The Economist in the Kindle app, then I could still get it on my Kindle.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#16

Post by lmm »

HyperSane wrote: post #12
mdavidn wrote: post #2

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

Can't you use the Kindle app on your laptop?

That doesn't help, the issue is these things are no longer going to be published on the Kindle platform at all.

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#17

Post by iz_zi »

mdavidn wrote: post #2

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

Why haven’t you invested in a open source alternative that doesn’t limit your choices?

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#18

Post by mrwh »

kaishiro wrote: post #13
mrwh wrote: post #3

I had to read the email I got about this several times because it didn't seem to make sense. Hang on, my New York Times subscription is going to end in September and then... that's it? The Kindle is wonderful for reading newspapers on, and now - what? And why? I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change. I'm also sure that I've never seen a deprecation so poorly communicated.

"I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change." Call me jaded, but the older I get the less faith I have that this is actually true.

Oh to be clear, I'm including "VP responsible gets a bonus". I certainly don't mean necessarily a good reason for the rest of us!

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#19

Post by mdavidn »

iz_zi wrote: post #17
mdavidn wrote: post #2

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

Why haven’t you invested in a open source alternative that doesn’t limit your choices?

What would an "open source alternative" to The Economist look like exactly?

Re: Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

#20

Post by Talanes »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #11
mdavidn wrote: post #2

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

> They don't publish in an offline format for laptops. I don't own a tablet. The conclusion to draw is that you clearly don't own your ereader either. I mean DRM does not stop those unwilling to pay. If the only achievement of DRM is to annoy the people who are willing to pay, i wonder if it likely increases rather than reduces piracy. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to be served an open epub with your m…

The problem isn't putting the content onto the device, that's very easy to do. The problem is that the content isn't being published in any offline-viewable formats anymore, so there's nothing to transfer.
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