Kindle Is Making It Harder to Switch to Rival eReader Brands.
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Been using an Onyx Boox Nova 3 for maybe 8 years now. It runs android, drm free everything. For some android could be a distractiin from reading, but the browser is slow enough to were you use it to hop on annas-archive, get a book and then quickly close it. File transfer via shared wifi or USB, good reader, some nice reading stats without needing any account. Recommend if anyone wants to jump the amazon ship.
E-paper devices with Android are usually way underpowered for the platform, easier to just use the phone for such things.
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On February 26th, Kindle customers will lose the ability to download eBook purchases directly to their PC. If you want to switch to a rival eReader brand in the future, I suggest that you use the soon-to-be discontinued "Download and Transfer via USB" feature to archive your Kindle library.
They are allowed to do that? It's your ebooks, not their ebooks.
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Where the hell are you buying books that they cost 50 lol
Shhh he's a pirate, he has no concept of how much media costs.
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Thing is, the pinenote is €610, and the kindle paperwhite is £160, cheaper on discount.
I get your point and there’s a reason why the kindle is as cheap as it is, but I can understand why someone would see those prices and go for the kindle.
Or go for the Kobo, which is similarly priced as the Kindle. The Kobo Clara Colour is £150
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They are allowed to do that? It's your ebooks, not their ebooks.
According to them you only have a license to those ebooks.
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According to them you only have a license to those ebooks.
And Amazon owns them? I would be furious as a publisher.
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On February 26th, Kindle customers will lose the ability to download eBook purchases directly to their PC. If you want to switch to a rival eReader brand in the future, I suggest that you use the soon-to-be discontinued "Download and Transfer via USB" feature to archive your Kindle library.
It eludes me how people pay to 'buy' something that they cannot download in the first place. If I don't have it as a file on my computer, I don't own it. You wouldn't pay to 'buy' a physical item if that meant only being able to look at it at the store, without the ability to take it home and do whatever you want with it.
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My Kobo e-reader is pretty nice and takes any ol e-pub file just fine. And Calibre, a third party software for managing ebooks, has a plugin to crack Kindle files. Just sayin
And Calibre, a third party software for managing ebooks, has a plugin to crack Kindle files.
Unfortunately currently broken for the latest version of Kindle for PC, which switched to a different encryption scheme. It also uses KFX file format that nobody likes, which fortunately can be converted to EPUB with another plugin, but de-DRMing doesn't seem to work right now.
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That's my situation too. Got the Kobo Clara Color as a Christmas present for myself (the color was like $10 more, so what the hell) after resisting eBooks for years, and I really love it.
They take almost any ebook type, but they do have their own proprietary format, KEPUB. That's what their own store uses. Thankfully, Calibre can convert to and from it. Due to Kobo being able to more easily handle zooming in to images and things like that with KEPUB, it's sometimes worth converting.
Nice. Mines an older Clara I bought about 5 years ago. I personally don't have the use for a color screen, but for $10 I guess why not!
I installed KO Reader as soon as I got it and never looked back, it supports standard epubs. Not as pretty as the standard Nickel (?) OS but more customisable.
I love having an e-reader. I read so much more because of it. Much more convenient, not having to worry about heavy books, holding open pages, no need to worry about proper lighting for reading. Light and small enough to bring everywhere. I will buy another immediately once this one dies.
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It eludes me how people pay to 'buy' something that they cannot download in the first place. If I don't have it as a file on my computer, I don't own it. You wouldn't pay to 'buy' a physical item if that meant only being able to look at it at the store, without the ability to take it home and do whatever you want with it.
I agree. However, some dishonest services allow to download, but downloaded file is DRM. It is even worse.
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It eludes me how people pay to 'buy' something that they cannot download in the first place. If I don't have it as a file on my computer, I don't own it. You wouldn't pay to 'buy' a physical item if that meant only being able to look at it at the store, without the ability to take it home and do whatever you want with it.
If buying is not owning…
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On February 26th, Kindle customers will lose the ability to download eBook purchases directly to their PC. If you want to switch to a rival eReader brand in the future, I suggest that you use the soon-to-be discontinued "Download and Transfer via USB" feature to archive your Kindle library.
C'mon United States, do the anti-trust thing! You used to be so good at it!
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C'mon United States, do the anti-trust thing! You used to be so good at it!
Did they? There have been a few cases, sure, but in general they've not been good in this regard.
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Am I an idiot for enjoying my Kindle Paperwhite as an eReader, while at the same time never actually buying books from Amazon?
Same. Most news sites treating this change as a "Kindle issue" is borderline disinformation. This is an "Amazon issue". Kindle the device isn't changing and there is no reason to switch if you already own one (just please don't buy a new one).
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Better Calibre integration.
Custom shelves and book collections on Kindle.
Ok, the latter might actually be worth it. I’ll have to look into that.
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And Amazon owns them? I would be furious as a publisher.
Uneducated 2 cents. afaik the publishers have some kind of “part ownership”, where they can pull it out from the store whenever. The “anti-piracy” feature you get with DRMs is why many publishers actually like them tho. The part ownership thing is just icing on the cake. So no, a good chunk of publishers won’t be furious at all. DRM gives what publishers want and more, at the expense of the consumers in a way that most wouldn’t realize.
And if anything, I think it makes more sense to think that these publishers are also just granting Amazon some kind of “license” to sell their e-books.
Amazon would absolutely be destroying their relationship with a publisher though, if they decide to block the selling or access of a book to large group of people who are would-be buyers. But, at the end of the day, publishers want to know how much they’re making from putting their e-books on Amazon, and as long as that revenue is enough to satisfy their needs, they don’t need to care too much about the odd customer who had their book revoked, and they would generally be pretty shielded from any sort of disputes as long as Amazon is making those revoking calls.
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Well, you should not use Amazon anything. Valuable lesson learned.
I have a first generation kindle that I bought 16 years ago. They used to be awesome, and Amazon shaped the way ecommerce worked. The lesson here is not to be fully dependent on one supplier, not to boycott everything just because it's big.
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I agree. However, some dishonest services allow to download, but downloaded file is DRM. It is even worse.
Most services are forced to carry DRM only versions of Ebooks. But there are ways of legally removing the DRM - it's a faff but doable. I buy epubs and don't use Kindle (haven't for a long time) as it's much harder to remove the DRM and actually own your books.
But way I look at it - if I bought the Kindle version of a book, I can just download a DRM free version by sailing the seas. Fuck Amazon.
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Or go for the Kobo, which is similarly priced as the Kindle. The Kobo Clara Colour is £150
I love how hackable Kobos are. I put KOReader on mine and it's honestly just the best experience I could ask for.
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And Amazon owns them? I would be furious as a publisher.
No, the files are mostly owned by the publisher. That's why you sometimes have stories where books disappear from Kindles because the rights holders revoke Amazon's license to sell their books. It's what happened with one version of Orwell's 1984, ironically.
It's ridiculous, if you ask me, but that's the reality with Broken By Design DRM ebooks.
That's why it's prudent for any buyers of ebooks to download them as soon as you can, and put them in a library like "Calibre", that way, even if Amazon loses their license to sell those publishers books, you still have access to the ebooks you bought with your money.
And that's why it's bad that Amazon is removing the option to download the files yourself. And why I recommend people to take their business and wallets elsewhere! Stop giving Bezos your money.
