MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Mobipocket Issues affecting our customers

Monteagle · 10-25-2008, 11:09 PM

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Amazon/Mobipocket has done it again, leaving customers holding the bag while they focus on Oprah.

Wonder if Oprah - who claims to speak for regular people and apparently endorsed the Kindle yesterday - knows that her latest corporate sponsor took down hundreds of thousands of customers ebookshelves in the interest of their corporate profits just a few short years ago - same management then as now. (These were bookshelves Amazon encouraged people to use as a virtual library and back-up, just as it's done with Kindle). Or does she know that Amazon let their Mobipocket customers go almost a month last September without being abel to download ebooks they purchased without warning, public statement or apology.

And they're doing more of the same today. Any wonder the publishers are frightened of Amazon's attempt at dominance. Amazon will continue to encourage creativity, of course, so long as it's on Amazon's terms.

I'm for the independents any day - I'll keep buying my ebooks from BooksOnBoard, or FWse.

It's hard to believe that the self-appointed champion of regular people has sold her soul to the big corporation and the quarterly income statement. (Maybe she needed some extra cash after getting massacred in the stock market. History will judge.)

As for me, I still like to think we have some thread of control over our decisions; I'll do everything I can to resist the hundreds of millions of dollars big outfits like Amazon spend to control me. That kind of "advertising and spin" strategy is the same kind of thing we see with the sub-prime mortgage thing and the bailout. Why can't ebooks - and books in general - be left out of that kind of politics and spin-meistering?

10-25-2008, 11:09 PM	#20
Monteagle Member Posts: 16 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2007 Device: Treo 700w	Oprah beware - Amazon Mobipocket makes saps of all of us I guess we shouldn't be surprised that Amazon/Mobipocket has done it again, leaving customers holding the bag while they focus on Oprah. Wonder if Oprah - who claims to speak for regular people and apparently endorsed the Kindle yesterday - knows that her latest corporate sponsor took down hundreds of thousands of customers ebookshelves in the interest of their corporate profits just a few short years ago - same management then as now. (These were bookshelves Amazon encouraged people to use as a virtual library and back-up, just as it's done with Kindle). Or does she know that Amazon let their Mobipocket customers go almost a month last September without being abel to download ebooks they purchased without warning, public statement or apology. And they're doing more of the same today. Any wonder the publishers are frightened of Amazon's attempt at dominance. Amazon will continue to encourage creativity, of course, so long as it's on Amazon's terms. I'm for the independents any day - I'll keep buying my ebooks from BooksOnBoard, or FWse. It's hard to believe that the self-appointed champion of regular people has sold her soul to the big corporation and the quarterly income statement. (Maybe she needed some extra cash after getting massacred in the stock market. History will judge.) As for me, I still like to think we have some thread of control over our decisions; I'll do everything I can to resist the hundreds of millions of dollars big outfits like Amazon spend to control me. That kind of "advertising and spin" strategy is the same kind of thing we see with the sub-prime mortgage thing and the bailout. Why can't ebooks - and books in general - be left out of that kind of politics and spin-meistering?