Quote:
Originally Posted by davidfor
At no time do he Kobo devices shove anything at you. You have to make a conscious decision to look at the books they want to sell you. If you never touch the Bookstore link, you will never see a book you haven't put onto the device.
As to their recommendations algorithm, if you actually buy books from them it improves. Due to some promo codes, I bought a lot of books in December. At the beginning of the month, the recommendations where rubbish. Right now, every single one of the books on the recommendations is something I would consider. At least, if I was in a bookshop, I would pick them up and read the back cover. Marking books as "Not interested" helps but buying has a bigger impact.
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By that logic, when I try to watch a TV show and they pop up graphics advertising other shows it shouldn't irritate me either - I don't have to go watch those other shows.
They say you can boil a frog to death in a pan of water by increasing the heat in very small increments, so small that the frog never reacts and jumps out. Consumers are like that frog. I remember when people started signing up for cable TV because that way they could watch without commercials; now we pay the monthly fee and see 10 times as many commercials per hour as we saw on free TV when I was young.
As for my Kobo, as I explained earlier one of my reasons for purchasing it was that I didn't have to see marketing material on it, or pay a higher price for a unit that didn't show it. When they turned the water temperature up in 1.9.17 and I had to change my setting to Short List, I went along. When they turned it up another notch so that I'd have to see it every time I viewed my home page, I jumped out of the pan.