Amazon is changing what is written in books
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Piracy was, is and remains a service problem, as Gabe Newell of Valve (Steam) once stated. Most people are perfectly content to pay a reasonable price to get access to the things they want. But if you make that impossible, they’ll find other options.
Take anime for example: even if you subscribed to every streaming service out there, you still wouldn’t be able to see everything you wanted. Some things aren’t streamable or sold ANYWHERE, or only on a service that’s actively blocked in your region. Which means there is simply no legal way for you at all to get that content.
Music on the other hand solved that dilemma. You can use Spotify, YT Music, Apple Music or a host of other options. You pay a flat fee and you can listen to pretty much every song you want, as often as you want. Nobody’s pirating MP3’s these days, because nobody needs to. It’s now more convenient to just stream it.
I’d really like to see someone do the same for books. An unlimited digital library that lets you download anything you want for a flat subscription fee. I’d pay 10 bucks a month for that for sure. Because that would make it more convenient than pirating is right now, with a more consistent experience.
Bruv real libraries will let you download books for free
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Piracy was, is and remains a service problem, as Gabe Newell of Valve (Steam) once stated. Most people are perfectly content to pay a reasonable price to get access to the things they want. But if you make that impossible, they’ll find other options.
Take anime for example: even if you subscribed to every streaming service out there, you still wouldn’t be able to see everything you wanted. Some things aren’t streamable or sold ANYWHERE, or only on a service that’s actively blocked in your region. Which means there is simply no legal way for you at all to get that content.
Music on the other hand solved that dilemma. You can use Spotify, YT Music, Apple Music or a host of other options. You pay a flat fee and you can listen to pretty much every song you want, as often as you want. Nobody’s pirating MP3’s these days, because nobody needs to. It’s now more convenient to just stream it.
I’d really like to see someone do the same for books. An unlimited digital library that lets you download anything you want for a flat subscription fee. I’d pay 10 bucks a month for that for sure. Because that would make it more convenient than pirating is right now, with a more consistent experience.
WB/Discovery+ just screwed people in the UK for watching cycling. It was £7 a month to watch before, which I was happy to pay. They just put an end to that and now bundled the cycling with their premium sports service for £29. I'm not paying all that when I only want cycling and none of their other content.
I cancelled my subscription, asked them to delete my account, purchased a fire stick and now paying for some dodgy IPTV service to watch it there for a fraction of the price.
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Bruv real libraries will let you download books for free
Yes, a lot of them do. But their digital selection often is pretty limited and comes with restrictions.
For example: our Dutch national online library lets you ‘borrow’ 10 e-books at a time. You get 21 days to read a book, but you can extend that one time by another three weeks. After that, you have to ‘return’ and ‘check them out again’ if you want to continue reading. With my particular reading habits, that’s a hassle and wouldn’t work for me.
But the biggest issue is: they only offer a limited selection. Basically, NONE of the books I’m reading now are available through that system.
I want to be able to read every book I want, no time restriction. And that’s not possible with the current digital library system they offer.
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But lets see the Positive side: Now the Nazis wont have to burn thousands of books, saving tons of co2 in their Plan to take over the world with propaganda. So, yay for the envoirment I guess
I'm glad I've already pulled my audible library in to audibookshelf, I didn't have many ebooks so didn't bother with them. I'm moving to librofm this month I think.
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Does Amazon have permission to change what's in your book though?
Copyright prevents them from making derivative works and if they change your text without your permission, that's a clear copyright violation.
I don't know how licensing deals work with Amazon but I'm guessing if they are doing this en mass, there is probably some provision in their contract.
The bigger question is do they care. At worst they get a slap on the wrist by the US government. At best they get to control the narrative and have books like having history books on their platform talk about how the the Allies first striked Nazi Germany because they were lifting the country out of economic crisis and making the world a better place.
I doubt they'll care or listen if EU says stop since they'll just find a way around whatever they have planned to try and stop revisionist ideology from taking hold.
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But lets see the Positive side: Now the Nazis wont have to burn thousands of books, saving tons of co2 in their Plan to take over the world with propaganda. So, yay for the envoirment I guess
I've got an old Kindle, but not too old, which I jailbroke just yesterday with Winter break. I recommend that method for those considering getting drm free usage out of their device (instead of it contributing to ewaste).
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Piracy was, is and remains a service problem, as Gabe Newell of Valve (Steam) once stated. Most people are perfectly content to pay a reasonable price to get access to the things they want. But if you make that impossible, they’ll find other options.
Take anime for example: even if you subscribed to every streaming service out there, you still wouldn’t be able to see everything you wanted. Some things aren’t streamable or sold ANYWHERE, or only on a service that’s actively blocked in your region. Which means there is simply no legal way for you at all to get that content.
Music on the other hand solved that dilemma. You can use Spotify, YT Music, Apple Music or a host of other options. You pay a flat fee and you can listen to pretty much every song you want, as often as you want. Nobody’s pirating MP3’s these days, because nobody needs to. It’s now more convenient to just stream it.
I’d really like to see someone do the same for books. An unlimited digital library that lets you download anything you want for a flat subscription fee. I’d pay 10 bucks a month for that for sure. Because that would make it more convenient than pirating is right now, with a more consistent experience.
Most people are perfectly content to pay a reasonable price to get access to the things they want. But if you make that impossible, they’ll find other options.
That's a sliding scale, though. Streaming comes at a fixed price.
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Is there a text version of this?
Yes, I prefer to read over watching a video and being forced to go at someone else's pace.
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Piracy was, is and remains a service problem, as Gabe Newell of Valve (Steam) once stated. Most people are perfectly content to pay a reasonable price to get access to the things they want. But if you make that impossible, they’ll find other options.
Take anime for example: even if you subscribed to every streaming service out there, you still wouldn’t be able to see everything you wanted. Some things aren’t streamable or sold ANYWHERE, or only on a service that’s actively blocked in your region. Which means there is simply no legal way for you at all to get that content.
Music on the other hand solved that dilemma. You can use Spotify, YT Music, Apple Music or a host of other options. You pay a flat fee and you can listen to pretty much every song you want, as often as you want. Nobody’s pirating MP3’s these days, because nobody needs to. It’s now more convenient to just stream it.
I’d really like to see someone do the same for books. An unlimited digital library that lets you download anything you want for a flat subscription fee. I’d pay 10 bucks a month for that for sure. Because that would make it more convenient than pirating is right now, with a more consistent experience.
Music is definitely not a solved problem. About 30% of my favorite older tunes aren't available on streaming at all, as I discovered when I tried to find a way to casually share with some friends.
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So... z-library?
https://z-lib.gsI bought a kobo recently (for the color screen) and have had to keep going back to my kindle to read smutty romance. All their newest decisions made me cancel my KU sub, and this has saved me from what I thought would be a drought.
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That's why Richard Stallman calls kindle the swindle.
Mr Stallman needs to be considered from all sides before deciding whether you'll follow his lead. He's not without some toejam.
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I bought a kobo recently (for the color screen) and have had to keep going back to my kindle to read smutty romance. All their newest decisions made me cancel my KU sub, and this has saved me from what I thought would be a drought.
Happy to help
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Kindle just works
I can read a book in a series, finish it, buy the next one and it’s ready to read before I’ve gotten a new cup of tea.
Lol. This is the exact same on...checks notes... every single other platform I know of. I have a kobo sage and it's the same, except that kobo runs on Linux and they don't lock their system. You can literally "jailbreak" it and still get updates from them. They also don't lock their books with encryption like on kindle so they lock you in. IMHO, there is 0 reasons to buy a kindle now, period.
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The reality is that Amazon is the most convenient way to buy a lot of things, and as a result, people will put up with a lot of bullshit.
I genuinely try to buy things locally before I start looking online. It's increasingly difficult even for common items. The big box stores are shifting to branded only retailers. Where I used to be able to go to any hardware store and find a similar spread of items available, Lowe's, home Depot and Menards all offer their own lines of tools to varrying degrees. Menards is the worst about it, but they're all doing it.
Less common items are being phased out in stores, going to online order only. Where in the past you'd have your choice of just about any brand of thing you could think of in any store in any major town, now you're lucky to find certain things at all. And if I'm going to have to order it online anyway, Amazon has the best return policy.
Hobby or specialty items are easily marked up 300% locally. And you have to go to that specific store, which may require a fucking membership just to get an only marginally hyper inflated price. It's fine if it's one thing I need right now but I'm not going to pay for the privilege of shopping at a hobby shop. I'm at Costco every week and I'm salty about that membership. Jack Tanner's Leather Emporium isn't even getting my email address.
And frequently on Amazon it's not just the same thing, it's the exact same fucking product. Likely shipped to the hobby shop from Amazon. I get that these guys need to make a living, but bro, have a little respect for modern consumers. I'll pay a premium, I'm not signing up for anything and I'm not paying triple the price.
And even if you are resolved to buy online, and you try to go to the branded website to buy the specialty thing, Amazon has it, they have free shipping, and they'll get it to you tomorrow. But if you go to Rockler's website they're going to charge you 10-20 dollars to ship a single item, unless you spend more money, and it'll take two to three weeks to get to you.
I'm sorry, Amazon fucking won. Even if I say I'm willing to eat the cost, pay the shipping, pay a premium, and I'm willing to wait for the stuff I order, I'll even make an account at every shady ass website I want to order from and give all of them my payment information, regardless of how much I trust their security, because I know Amazon is a horrifically evil company, I'm a drop in the fucking bucket. So are you and anyone reading this.
It's just too fucking convenient. Too many competitors are cutting off the tail to try to keep up. They've won
Except we are talking about ebooks and none of what you've said applies to them. Amazon did not win in the ebooks department, as there are many other better platforms out there that don't fuck their people.
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You're thinking like a techy, put yourself in the layman's shoes.
The Kindle was a pretty big deal as the first widespread e-reader. My tech-challenged mom got one and she loves how easy it is to get a book and have it there.
Given that this change won't really affect her, she probably doesn't care. There's a lot more people like my mom than you or I.
And your mother isn't complaining about it, which is not the audience I'm talking to. My whole issue is with those who choose amazon then complain about their practices. Especially in ebooks, there is actually no excuse for anyone to use amazon anymore. I understand some people have already bought many books from them and don't want to lose their books, but at least protest them not buying more books from them.
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You can even buy books directly from publishers. Recently I wanted a hardback copy of a book and it was out of stock, backordered, or absurdly high priced on all the big popular online places. Ended up ordering it for MSRP from Penguin Random House direct.
Dude, literally. Lmao. I once had an author himself give me a link to his book to buy it. The freaking other himself. For our older parents and non-techy people, I understand using and sticking to amazon, they most likely won't even notice any of Amazon's bad practices, but young folks who are techy? Come on, you know better.
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I’m constantly on the lookout for European alternatives. Are there any EU alternatives to Amazon?
Isn't Kobo made by rakuten? And Rakuten mainly operates in Germany? Also, hell get an e-reader with android on it and you can run all kinds of books on it without limiting yourself to just one company. There is even a Linux e-reader called pine note that you can buy.
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That's not unlike the experience on my Kobo Elipsa 2e.
How is that Elipsa e2? I wanted to get it, but I discovered that it had a low PPI 227 and held off. I have eagle eyes and I hate seeing pixels. lol.. so I got the sage fantastic device, but I want the 10" screen so badly.
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Mr Stallman needs to be considered from all sides before deciding whether you'll follow his lead. He's not without some toejam.
Not sure what that means. He’s not Jesus. There’s no need to worship him! We can take the good and criticize the bad.
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But lets see the Positive side: Now the Nazis wont have to burn thousands of books, saving tons of co2 in their Plan to take over the world with propaganda. So, yay for the envoirment I guess
Soon:
"Protestors who were planning to publish video evidence of police brutality find the videos mysteriously vanished from their phone"
