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Not buying another Kindle

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Re: Not buying another Kindle

#171

Post by seesthruya »

nickvec wrote: post #150

Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)

Well, I find Whispersync for Kindle to be absolutely irreplaceable.

I have a 40 minute drive to work each way, and I find audiobooks the best way to pass the time. At night if I want to read the same book from my drive, Kindle picks up exactly where I stopped listening. And does the reverse the next morning when I get in the car.

If any else is doing this, I am unaware. But it's AWESOME.

My main complaint is Amazon has discontinued Kindle devices with physical page turn buttons. Whoever made that decision should be fired.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#172

Post by BeetleB »

andrewla wrote: post #17

In my view the death of the eReader is just the price fixing on ebooks -- that ebooks are sold at par with at a premium to physical books still bothers me, and I think is responsible for the fact that the Kindle is dying -- Amazon can't move enough ebooks at these price levels to be worth investing anything in interested new hardware.

> that ebooks are sold at par with at a premium to physical books still bothers me, and I think is responsible for the fact that the Kindle is dying

Ebooks have always been priced this way. How can it contribute to its dying when it was this way during the "glory" days?

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#173

Post by Mezzie »

nickvec wrote: post #150

Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)

Text size control is great for anyone with less than perfect vision. I tend to like reading dense non-fiction and the world seems to think that requires itty bitty text.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#174

Post by MengerSponge »

someone4958923 wrote: post #125

I went through this migration last year. A few things that helped: Calibre is the escape hatch. Converts everything to EPUB. Even if you don't use it day-to-day, it's the best tool for getting your library out of Amazon's format. Public domain catalogs are huge now. Standard Ebooks, Internet Archive, Gutenberg - tens of thousands of well-formatted free EPUBs. Most people don't realize how much is out there. For actua…

If you're even the slightest bit tech savvy you can find a DRM stripping utility for Calibre. Apprentice Alf is long retired, but a fork of that DeDRM still is maintained

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#175

Post by BoppreH »

nickvec wrote: post #150

Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)

Other commenters gave good reasons, and here are a few more:

- If you like long books, an e-reader is much lighter than a tome. Not only more portable, but also easier to hold when reading.

- When lying down you don't have to fight the cover 50% of the time. Easy to read one-handed too.

- The new ones are water-resistant.

- You can have multiple books available, in case you switch it up or just finish them quickly.

- Search feature.

- Built-in bookmark.

- Time estimates until end-of-chapter and end-of-book.

- The e-ink screen doesn't feel like a screen. Not really a plus on top of paper books, but just because you mentioned.

I still read physical books when they're gifted or the medium requires it (House of Leaves being the latest example), but otherwise I'm 100% on e-readers. Previously Kindle Paperwhite 6th Gen, and since a few weeks, Kobo Clara BW.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#176

Post by BeetleB »

jmyeet wrote: post #46
lokar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to evaluate the cost of a ebook vs physical book without knowing the cut that the author and publisher get of the sales price.

Sure you can. An ebook has zero cost of distribution and no middlemen. A physical book has to be typeset, printed, shipped to stores, shipped to customers, marketed in store, etc etc etc. If a physical book is sold for $10 at least half that is printing, distribution and retail. Like the GP, the price fixing of ebooks at the Dane price as physical books mothers me as well, particularly because physical books can be s…

I, too, was once naive and thought that the price of goods is largely determined by the cost of production.

But as anyone who has taken Econ 101 knows, the price is based on what people are willing to pay for it. The cost of production merely dictates whether it is viable to sell in the market.

If most people are willing to pay $10 for an ebook, when the hardcopy is also $10, then $10 is what they'll sell it for.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#177

Post by MrDOS »

chmod775 wrote: post #57
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.

The Kobo Glo, released in 2012, is still getting updates to the latest Kobo firmware version. In fact all Kobo e-ink devices, except the Kobo Mini, wifi, and the original one, are still getting firmware updates. Their android-based tablets with IPS screens are all discontinued though (as far as I am aware). This is more than Amazon ever did. They haven't updated the firmware on some of their devices that are official…

Not to mention that those devices all support regular EPUBs out of the box, and so you can still put new content on them today.

Of course, you'll get a bit more out of them if you convert your EPUBs to KEPUBs with Kepubify[0], but the point remains that Kobos are supplemented by their cloud/connected features, not inherently dependent on them.

0: https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#178

Post by klik99 »

I have several Kindles for me and my kids, I have never bought a book on the Amazon store, instead I side load everything. Amazon basically subsidized a cheap and tough e-reader assuming it would drive everyone to the store, which I actively do not engage with. If it gets bricked in 10 years, I still think it would be worth it.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#179

Post by aidenn0 »

BeetleB wrote: post #172
andrewla wrote: post #17

In my view the death of the eReader is just the price fixing on ebooks -- that ebooks are sold at par with at a premium to physical books still bothers me, and I think is responsible for the fact that the Kindle is dying -- Amazon can't move enough ebooks at these price levels to be worth investing anything in interested new hardware.

> that ebooks are sold at par with at a premium to physical books still bothers me, and I think is responsible for the fact that the Kindle is dying Ebooks have always been priced this way. How can it contribute to its dying when it was this way during the "glory" days?

That pricing really only started in 2010. Prior to that, publishers would sell them to Amazon at (presumably) a similar cost to wholesale physical books, and Amazon would mark them up much less than the physical books.

Re: Not buying another Kindle

#180

Post by squeaky-clean »

nickvec wrote: post #150

Besides portability, what other benefits are there to using e-books? I vastly prefer having a physical copy of a book, mainly because I’d rather not look at a screen while reading (unless necessary.) Plus, I love lending out books to friends, and I feel like it’s a much bigger pain to do so virtually (unless they’re tech savvy!)

Ctrl+F. Highlighting, notes, and bookmarks with the ability to hide them. Reading in a dark room. Adjustable font size. Slim size (that's related to portability but I can also read an 800 page book in my bed without getting my arms tired).
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