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Not buying another Kindle

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Re: Not buying another Kindle

#111

Post by beej71 »

johngossman wrote: post #8

I can understand why one would want to move from Kindle to another device, but this article starts by complaining that support is being dropped for devices from before 2013. I can even understand being upset by this, but I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. Could be. But I sure wouldn't count on it.

> I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years.

I don't have that faith either, but it still irks me when good hardware has to get chucked for software reasons. And this goes double for when those software reasons are about stupid-ass DRM.

But in this particular instance I don't consider it to be that bad for me personally, since I don't rely on being able to access Amazon DRM books. But a lot of perfectly working devices are going to get landfilled for this.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#114

Post by delecti »

fmajid wrote: post #80
delecti wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing you've quoted is wrong per se, but it's also not the full story. Amazon removed the ability to download files from them to your computer. And they will soon be removing the ability to download files from them directly to older kindle devices. You can still download a MOBI or EPUB from anywhere else online (though I think some older kindles don't support EPUB) and transfer it via USB, and will still be able to…

Interesting. Once again, I don't have a Kindle so I can't verify any of this. I do have a PocketBook Versa with stock firmware and a M5Stack Paper S3 running Crosspoint Reader, but hardly use either as I prefer reading on LCD or OLED tablets. The only formats I care about are DRM-free ePub and PDF.

Totally fair. I don't read much on Kindles either (mostly on my OLED phone). There's just a lot of dis/misinformation around these deprecations that I feel should be corrected. I worked on Kindles earlier in my career and still have a soft spot in my heart for them.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#115

Post by tristor »

I've had so many problems with ereaders that I've just gone back to using paper books, they have a better UX and none of the issues. I love my reMarkable tablet, but I definitely do NOT use it as an ereader and have no interest in doing so.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#116

Post by turtlesdown11 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #23
johngossman wrote: post #8

I can understand why one would want to move from Kindle to another device, but this article starts by complaining that support is being dropped for devices from before 2013. I can even understand being upset by this, but I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. Could be. But I sure wouldn't count on it.

What's also not mentioned is that the discontinued devices don't support KFX. KFX is the modern kindle format, AZW meanwhile is heavily PDF-based. KFX was designed ground-up by Amazon, supports every modern feature they could think of, and presumably couldn't be backported to 2013 and earlier Kindles; AZW meanwhile was basically a wrapper around a subset of PDF. KFX is a complete redo, notable enough it's what "Enhan…

and another thing: im not mad. please dont put in the newspaper that i got mad.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#117

Post by turtlesdown11 »

two_cents wrote: post #73

> We are still dealing with a home screen that prioritizes advertisements and promoted recommendations over your actual library. Navigating a large collection of books remains a chore, with sluggish animations and a lack of robust folder management that has been a standard feature on rival devices for years. Such claims make me think that this article is biased. There are two tabs on main Kindle screen - Home and Lib…

> There are two tabs on main Kindle screen - Home and Library (and also pretty good search). In Library you can see all your books AND collections as folders.

Two tabs, which one do they default you to? Which one do they default you to?

Such claims make me think that this post is biased.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#119

Post by fg137 »

SwellJoe wrote: post #91
johngossman wrote: post #8

I can understand why one would want to move from Kindle to another device, but this article starts by complaining that support is being dropped for devices from before 2013. I can even understand being upset by this, but I have absolutely no faith that whatever other device I switch to will still be supported in 10+ years. Could be. But I sure wouldn't count on it.

True, but most manufacturers don't go out of their way to break their old devices. Neglect is one thing, this feels more like theft.

What a shame that iPhone 6 cannot install the latest apps from App Store. This is robbery from Apple.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#120

Post by foldr »

jgeada wrote: post #83
com2kid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A number of authors have written about this and the tldr is that ebooks aren't really any cheaper to produce. Paper is cheap. Shipping is cheap. The incremental cost of making a physical book is so small as to be noise in the overall book price.

If that is true, of which I remain highly skeptical, then it implies that books are wildly inefficient to produce. What on earth are all the middlemen between book being authored and it being sold to a customer that add so much overhead that the cost of printing and logistics disappears in the noise???

The middlemen are giving your book some (still probably rather small) chance of being bought in significant numbers. If you just want a big stack of books and don't care if anyone buys them, they're not especially expensive to produce.
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