Paper vs. Kindle Cost - Page 4

CCDMan · 11-25-2007, 01:16 AM

The more negative posts I read about e-readers in general, not just the Kindle, the more evident it becomes that a significant number of these posts are by folks that can't really afford them. This, BTW, is more the Amazon "Review" forums, far more than Mobileread.

Although I agree that the readers could be and should be cheaper, I just can't help wonder about the motivation of some of these posters. Perhaps some degree of sour grapes is operating here, although it is hard to tell just how much might be sour grapes and impossible to say if any particular post falls into that category, since it is true the cost is a higher than it could be.

There just seem to be an awful lot of these posts and many of them seem to have a somewhat hostile and defensive tone. But maybe it is just my imagination.

lubberts · 11-25-2007, 01:44 AM

You know, sour grapes hadn't entered my mind for some reason until you just mentioned it. I'd say that for a bunch of the posts on the amazon site at least (certainly to a smaller degree here) there are some very sour grapes indeed. I work for t-mobile, and when the iPhone came out I had to hate it because I couldn't have it. Once it was hacked I was able to love it, and still do. I'm definitely willing to bet that more than a few of those posts would be positive if the prospect of owning one were actually a...prospect.

Sparrow · 11-25-2007, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

If there's a local jumble sale on, or anything like that, I donate them, but I have too little free time to make the effort to take them to a charity shop. I live a fair way from the nearest big town, and there's nothing like that in the village where I live and do all my essential shopping.

FreeCycle is a good way of getting rid of any old junk - it's surprising how many people want it

(and they come and pick it up).

nekokami · 11-25-2007, 10:12 AM

Does FreeCycle operate in the UK?

slayda · 11-25-2007, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

There was, in fact, a serious point behind the fatuous remark.

I probably spend roughly equal amounts of money each month on eBooks and take-away pizzas. I buy rather more eBooks than pizzas, but eBooks are cheaper than pizzas, so it works out about the same.

The point is, when you buy a pizza you get perhaps half an hour's enjoyment from it, and then it's gone for ever. If you want to repeat the experience, you have to buy another.

An eBook, which is cheaper than a pizza, gives far more enjoyment. It'll probably take me around 6h to read an average novel, so that's 12x the pleasure that the pizza's given me at a lower price.

Given that the eBook is already so massively ahead in the enjoyment stakes, why are people bothered about whether or not they'll be able to re-read that book in 5 years time? That's what I just don't get. People don't complain that they can't eat their pizza again, so why all the fuss about the eBook? Why not just consider it a one-time pleasure, like the pizza?

Also a diet of nothing but ebooks would ensure weight loss!

slayda · 11-25-2007, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lubberts

Humm, I hadn't heard of that before, perhaps my opinion on the issue is skewed because I've never had a bad experience with DRM...Could you give me an instance where people have been burned by DRM?

1) I bought some DRMed ebooks (.lit). Had an activated (for .lit) computer that would not open them. It said the computer was not activated. So I tried to activate it. Guess what. MS said I couldn't activate it since it was already activated. Never got those damned DRMed books to work.

2) Sony lost (from their listing of my library) books that (I could re-download anytime I wanted to) I lost when my hard drive crashed. Guess what. I never got those books back.

Is that enough instances or should I continue?

CCDMan · 11-25-2007, 10:35 AM

Quote:

You know, sour grapes hadn't entered my mind for some reason until you just mentioned it. I'd say that for a bunch of the posts on the amazon site at least (certainly to a smaller degree here) there are some very sour grapes indeed.

Yes, and in fact, although I did not say it (I have corrected this), it was the Amazon site, far more than Mobileread (who are much better informed as well as being more ebook types), that I was mostly thinking of - there are some real morons over there! Especially lots of posts over there on what is supposed to be a review forum that are by folks who have never seen an ebook, much less a Kindle.

BTW, I have noticed over the past week that the in stock date keeps creeping forward. Yesterday it was the 6th, it is now Dec 17th. It would be interesting to know what kind of numbers this represents...

CCDMan · 11-25-2007, 10:47 AM

Pizzas vs. ebooks. An interesting comparison. On the one hand, food is a necessity and pizza is a basic food group. <g> Books somewhat less "necessary" but almost as important as food to some folks.

I would say that it is an especially good comparison to recreational ebooks since pizza is a kinda frivolous "recreational" food. The prices being similar adds to the similarity.

So could we do w/o pizza? Sure. Do we want to? Probably not.

Of course, buying the reader is kinda like buying a specialty pizza oven (and you thought the Kindle was spendy <g>) to make the pizzas. Whether or not you think that is worthwhile depends both on how much money you have to spend and how much you like pizza!

Sparrow · 11-25-2007, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

Does FreeCycle operate in the UK?

Yep - I'm in the UK and regularly use it to get rid of stuff (inc. old books).

BenG · 11-26-2007, 06:27 PM

You could leave the book in public places with a note that its free to anyone who finds it.
If you register it at BookCrossing you can track where it ends up.

cynoclast · 12-10-2008, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

With me it's the storage aspect of it. I live in a small house and couldn't store 1,000 paper books. I can - and do - store 15,000 e-Books on an external USB hard disk the size of a pack of playing cards.

Craigslist, man, craigslist.

"Hi, I have books I don't want anymore, come and get them, free."

No shipping, no donating, don't even have to leave your house.

RickyMaveety · 12-10-2008, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CCDMan

The more negative posts I read about e-readers in general, not just the Kindle, the more evident it becomes that a significant number of these posts are by folks that can't really afford them. This, BTW, is more the Amazon "Review" forums, far more than Mobileread.

Although I agree that the readers could be and should be cheaper, I just can't help wonder about the motivation of some of these posters. Perhaps some degree of sour grapes is operating here, although it is hard to tell just how much might be sour grapes and impossible to say if any particular post falls into that category, since it is true the cost is a higher than it could be.

There just seem to be an awful lot of these posts and many of them seem to have a somewhat hostile and defensive tone. But maybe it is just my imagination.

Some of it is probably sour grapes, but some of it is just people who don't like certain companies or certain ebook readers, without much of a logical reason behind it.

I'll give you a personal example. I was dead set against ever getting an iPhone ... I simply was NOT going to do it. Sort of like how I was dead set against getting an iPod some years back.

So, I went through all sorts of other phones ... other mp3 players .... wasting money right left and sideways in order to avoid getting anything with an "i" in front of it. I don't know why, really .... I just was.

Then, I broke down and bought the damn things. Love the damn things!! Have one or the other (or both) on my person at all times. No exceptions. Also my Kindle. Of course, I didn't have any dislike of the Kindle ... from the moment I read the specs and saw the device it was "gimme, gimme, GIMME!!"

Now, I'm an "i" evangelist .... and a Kindle evangelist. I do tend to laud the things I love.

pilotbob · 12-10-2008, 08:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

Now, I'm an "i" evangelist .... and a Kindle evangelist. I do tend to laud the things I love.

Oh noooooo....... not an "i"Mac next!!

BOb

rawlus · 12-11-2008, 10:50 AM

so far i've found the kindle and ebooks to be quite nice.
i don't know where some have been buying $10-15 paper books - most hardcover books now seem to be closer to $30. in those instances, $9 for an ebook equivalent seems like a decent deal.
i do re-read some books years later - but i think that was to some degree a factor of budget and not being able to afford or justify another $30 book - i'll just re-read this one i originally read a few years ago instead.

prior to the kindle, i'd get rid of accumulated books once a year or so by taking a bunch on vacation and leaving them behind for hotel staff or whomever. donating to charity or to book sales. their bulk is really inexcusable IMHO.

DRM - i used to have an issue with the DRM and was obsessed with finding the reader that best-supported the open formats - thinking that i'd spend all the extra time on the computer tracking down the open books, doing conversions, uploading and downloading, etc. eventually i came around - i really cannot be bothered to spend one more minute on the computer doing that sort of thing - the kindle's disconnection from the computer is it's killer app feature.

sony DRM i would not trust as that company doesn't seem to know what it's doing - they are a hardware company and a content company and quite often create devices that are draconian in the ways they inhibit fair use. the music CDs that cripple your computer, the fiasco with DRM and their minidisc products, their online "stores" and whatnot. I'll personally never buy another sony product ever again, no matter how positively reviewed.

i went with the kindle for two primary reasons - no computer connection required, 200K+ titles available and growing.

the chances of me buying another standard format paper book have diminished greatly. i won't say never again, but there would have to be some strong reasoning for me to consider it.

as to future-proofness. the more successful the kindle becomes, the less risk there is in future obsolescence. likewise, tech accelerates and eventually, there will be a software hack to break kindle DRM, or kindle will do it on it's own as itunes has begun to do... once the revenue stream is established and the risk is minimized and popular culture takes over.

i would be far more worried about sony - they are not in the book business. the chances of their "store" surviving another 18 months are slim IMHO. amazon is positioned very well to crush them if they so choose. sony's hope would be to abandon the DRM and store model and adopt an open-format reader to go against the bebook and iliad and others.

bbusybookworm · 12-11-2008, 12:04 PM

Throwing my 2p in, there are two ore three points raised in the with the original post and some of the replys and ill chime in on the ones I can.

First the reselling of paper books. Which I do not generally resell my unwanted paper books nowadays, it is mainly because I mainly purchase only the books I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep.

I have resold books in the past, sometimes through Amazon, usually through a local used books store and while I've usually not gotten back much it was better then trashing them, and it did allow me to buy a few more new ones. My sister used to get a better deal as she usually got the store credit as the store had a good collection of her favourite genre's.

Having said that, having the freedom to sell or give away a copy can be quiet important, especially if you want to introduce a friend or relative to a genre or author and is something I miss at times with eBooks.

A Much more relevant problem for me (and I believe many others) is the restrictions imposed by DRM. I tend to change gadgets and computers regularly, and I'm wary of being dependent on a company's good graces to be able to access content I paid for. As such I've consciously made the choice to only buy books with DRM which has been cracked so that I can choose to remove it if I want or need to.

And Harry, I believe the analogy of comparing eBooks to Pizza is bit of a red herring. Ill actually compare it to the difference between buying a VHS tape / DVD and going to the Movies, where watching the Movie in the theatre is like the Pizza, a one time experience while Getting the DVD is getting a physical object and having the right to watch it when ever I want, or if I wished to giving it away. And As long as I Physically have it, I can still use it. Even if the company that made it goes out of business, i'm not going to lose the ability to use it.

For me ebooks are the equivalent of my DVD / Tapes (many of which I still watch after 20 years) and I still want to be able to access them in the future.

11-25-2007, 01:16 AM	#46
CCDMan *** Posts: 335 Karma: 5759 Join Date: Mar 2006 Device: ***	The more negative posts I read about e-readers in general, not just the Kindle, the more evident it becomes that a significant number of these posts are by folks that can't really afford them. This, BTW, is more the Amazon "Review" forums, far more than Mobileread. Although I agree that the readers could be and should be cheaper, I just can't help wonder about the motivation of some of these posters. Perhaps some degree of sour grapes is operating here, although it is hard to tell just how much might be sour grapes and impossible to say if any particular post falls into that category, since it is true the cost is a higher than it could be. There just seem to be an awful lot of these posts and many of them seem to have a somewhat hostile and defensive tone. But maybe it is just my imagination. Last edited by CCDMan; 11-25-2007 at 10:38 AM.

11-25-2007, 10:47 AM	#53
CCDMan *** Posts: 335 Karma: 5759 Join Date: Mar 2006 Device: ***	Pizzas vs. ebooks. An interesting comparison. On the one hand, food is a necessity and pizza is a basic food group. <g> Books somewhat less "necessary" but almost as important as food to some folks. I would say that it is an especially good comparison to recreational ebooks since pizza is a kinda frivolous "recreational" food. The prices being similar adds to the similarity. So could we do w/o pizza? Sure. Do we want to? Probably not. Of course, buying the reader is kinda like buying a specialty pizza oven (and you thought the Kindle was spendy <g>) to make the pizzas. Whether or not you think that is worthwhile depends both on how much money you have to spend and how much you like pizza! Last edited by CCDMan; 11-25-2007 at 11:06 AM.

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11-25-2007, 01:44 AM	#47
lubberts Member Posts: 22 Karma: 54 Join Date: Nov 2007 Device: Sony Reader 505, soon to be Kindle user!	You know, sour grapes hadn't entered my mind for some reason until you just mentioned it. I'd say that for a bunch of the posts on the amazon site at least (certainly to a smaller degree here) there are some very sour grapes indeed. I work for t-mobile, and when the iPhone came out I had to hate it because I couldn't have it. Once it was hacked I was able to love it, and still do. I'm definitely willing to bet that more than a few of those posts would be positive if the prospect of owning one were actually a...prospect.

11-25-2007, 10:12 AM	#49
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Does FreeCycle operate in the UK?

11-26-2007, 06:27 PM	#55
BenG Home Guard Posts: 4,729 Karma: 86721650 Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Alpha Ralpha Boulevard Device: Kindle Oasis 3G, iPhone 6	You could leave the book in public places with a note that its free to anyone who finds it. If you register it at BookCrossing you can track where it ends up.

12-11-2008, 10:50 AM	#59
rawlus Member Posts: 15 Karma: 122 Join Date: Oct 2008 Device: bookeen cybook	so far i've found the kindle and ebooks to be quite nice. i don't know where some have been buying $10-15 paper books - most hardcover books now seem to be closer to $30. in those instances, $9 for an ebook equivalent seems like a decent deal. i do re-read some books years later - but i think that was to some degree a factor of budget and not being able to afford or justify another $30 book - i'll just re-read this one i originally read a few years ago instead. prior to the kindle, i'd get rid of accumulated books once a year or so by taking a bunch on vacation and leaving them behind for hotel staff or whomever. donating to charity or to book sales. their bulk is really inexcusable IMHO. DRM - i used to have an issue with the DRM and was obsessed with finding the reader that best-supported the open formats - thinking that i'd spend all the extra time on the computer tracking down the open books, doing conversions, uploading and downloading, etc. eventually i came around - i really cannot be bothered to spend one more minute on the computer doing that sort of thing - the kindle's disconnection from the computer is it's killer app feature. sony DRM i would not trust as that company doesn't seem to know what it's doing - they are a hardware company and a content company and quite often create devices that are draconian in the ways they inhibit fair use. the music CDs that cripple your computer, the fiasco with DRM and their minidisc products, their online "stores" and whatnot. I'll personally never buy another sony product ever again, no matter how positively reviewed. i went with the kindle for two primary reasons - no computer connection required, 200K+ titles available and growing. the chances of me buying another standard format paper book have diminished greatly. i won't say never again, but there would have to be some strong reasoning for me to consider it. as to future-proofness. the more successful the kindle becomes, the less risk there is in future obsolescence. likewise, tech accelerates and eventually, there will be a software hack to break kindle DRM, or kindle will do it on it's own as itunes has begun to do... once the revenue stream is established and the risk is minimized and popular culture takes over. i would be far more worried about sony - they are not in the book business. the chances of their "store" surviving another 18 months are slim IMHO. amazon is positioned very well to crush them if they so choose. sony's hope would be to abandon the DRM and store model and adopt an open-format reader to go against the bebook and iliad and others.

12-11-2008, 12:04 PM	#60
bbusybookworm Tech Junkie Posts: 1,027 Karma: 10080 Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Earth Device: iPad, MotoXStyle, OnePlusOne	Throwing my 2p in, there are two ore three points raised in the with the original post and some of the replys and ill chime in on the ones I can. First the reselling of paper books. Which I do not generally resell my unwanted paper books nowadays, it is mainly because I mainly purchase only the books I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep. I have resold books in the past, sometimes through Amazon, usually through a local used books store and while I've usually not gotten back much it was better then trashing them, and it did allow me to buy a few more new ones. My sister used to get a better deal as she usually got the store credit as the store had a good collection of her favourite genre's. Having said that, having the freedom to sell or give away a copy can be quiet important, especially if you want to introduce a friend or relative to a genre or author and is something I miss at times with eBooks. A Much more relevant problem for me (and I believe many others) is the restrictions imposed by DRM. I tend to change gadgets and computers regularly, and I'm wary of being dependent on a company's good graces to be able to access content I paid for. As such I've consciously made the choice to only buy books with DRM which has been cracked so that I can choose to remove it if I want or need to. And Harry, I believe the analogy of comparing eBooks to Pizza is bit of a red herring. Ill actually compare it to the difference between buying a VHS tape / DVD and going to the Movies, where watching the Movie in the theatre is like the Pizza, a one time experience while Getting the DVD is getting a physical object and having the right to watch it when ever I want, or if I wished to giving it away. And As long as I Physically have it, I can still use it. Even if the company that made it goes out of business, i'm not going to lose the ability to use it. For me ebooks are the equivalent of my DVD / Tapes (many of which I still watch after 20 years) and I still want to be able to access them in the future.

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