11-25-2007, 01:16 AM | #46 |
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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, 01:44 AM | #47 |
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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.
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11-25-2007, 06:30 AM | #48 | |
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11-25-2007, 10:12 AM | #49 |
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Does FreeCycle operate in the UK?
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11-25-2007, 10:24 AM | #50 | |
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11-25-2007, 10:34 AM | #51 | |
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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? |
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11-25-2007, 10:35 AM | #52 | |
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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... Last edited by CCDMan; 11-25-2007 at 10:58 AM. |
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11-25-2007, 10:47 AM | #53 |
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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. |
11-25-2007, 11:40 AM | #54 |
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11-26-2007, 06:27 PM | #55 |
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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. |
12-10-2008, 02:27 PM | #56 | |
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"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. |
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12-10-2008, 03:05 PM | #57 | |
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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. |
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12-10-2008, 08:22 PM | #58 |
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12-11-2008, 10:50 AM | #59 |
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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 |
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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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