Amazon to Charge by Megabyte for Personal Docs

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

There is a "from mobi" converter. It's called calibre. And no, they can't change the format; it would cut off all the users who have older devices.

Nate, do you really think cutting off users with older devices is so far fetched as to be not within Amazon's sights? I'm not saying Amazon will do it, but it certainly could. How about this:

Because of technical advancements that better enable us to more faithfully reproduce the look and feel of books and in a more secure DRMed format, Amazon is sad to announce that as of May 15 the .mobi format for ebooks will no longer be viable. However, Amazon is proud to announce a rare opportunity for all owners of older ebook-reading devices: The chance to upgrade, at a 5% discount, to the the new Kindle 3 and free conversion of your old .mobi ebooks to the new, enhanced, and more hack-proof .mzw format.

Just think of all the non-Kindlers Amazon could force into its fold.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by Sonist

Uhm, but if I limit you to a closed, proprietary format, then you have to convert your files to it. And if you are not all that technically savvy, you'll pay me whatever I ask (within reason), for the convenience.

Amazon CLEARLY says that they will continue to provide free conversion service. What they won't commit to is free DELIVERY over the wireless.

[Daithi]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Umm, the announcement is not as the initial poster characterized...

The initial poster didn't mischaracterize anything.

Amazon's previous policy was to charge $0.10 but they never actually charged anyone, and now they are announcing that they will charge $0.15, which most likely means they are actually going to start charging now. At least that's how I read the original post and its also how I understood the consequences of this announcement by Amazon.

[sirbruce]

While it may "most likely" mean that, they did not say that. He said:

Today, however, they have announced that not only will they start charging these fees (on May 4),

They did not announce "We will start charging these fees". Nor did they acknowledge that they didn't collect the fees in the past (the "however" part). Nor did they even say this change was May 4; they said the new document conversion formats were supported as of May 4, but for all I know the new document conversion fees could start immediately.

[BarryTX]

...well, I was figuring out how to connect to my K2's EVDO wireless through a modded cell phone tethered to my laptop...

...when I realized I needed to figure out the K2's top secret unique device identifier so it will recognize my rogue connection...

...and then it occurred to me that I need to reverse-engineer the encryption / security on the device so the connection speaks the same lingo as my K2...

...but about that time my coffee cup ran dry...

...so I went ahead and connected the USB cable in spite of the extra effort THAT required. Darn that Amazon for making my life difficult!

...in the end, I guess the alternative isn't so bad after all...

[TheJohnNewton]

Well I think I'll turn off the email via Calibre now. The usb cord is plugged in at all times anyway so no big deal.

[emellaich]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

That's weird, if it were to cover the cost of data transfer, why should it be a flat fee, shouldn't it depend on how large the ebook of each blog is? Some blogs have more pictures/text than others. Besides they always claimed they would start charging for wireless download, so why should they need to impose an additional fee structure?

I'm not totally sure about their charges for wireless download. They talked about a fee for documents that you had them convert and deliver wirelessly.

If you subscribe to a blog, newspaper or other content then there is not a download fee since they bake that fee into the subscription costs, and I don't expect that to change.

As I understand it, the one hole is in the area of web access. They specifically advertised it as having free wikipedia access, but access to the bulk of the web as an open issue. The browser is an 'experimental' feature so I expect they could withdraw it, or set up a proxy that restricts access to only approved sites.

The reason this internet discussion is relevant is that many of the folks here on Mobilread download blogs and books from either Mobilread or Feedbooks. These use web access, not the Amazon conversion process. As a result, these are still free and are not impacted by the earlier announcement. That is not to say that there will not be a change to charge or restrict internet downloads. It is just that for now the announcement does not impact the cost of access to free news through feedbooks.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

Isn't it a little hard to argue that .mobi is "closed" and "proprietary" when you can get a free converter for it, either command line or gui based? ...

Yeah, and by the same logic, it would be a little hard to argue, that DRM is really DRM, when you can get a free tool to strip it....

Originally Posted by Elsi

Amazon CLEARLY says that they will continue to provide free conversion service. What they won't commit to is free DELIVERY over the wireless.

You must love small print. And enjoy studying contracts and warranties (ah, the washing machine one, at 230 pages, must be heaven!)

Me, I like reading short ads with big claims. Like this one, from Amazon:

"No Wireless Bills
No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments. Amazon pays for Kindle's wireless connectivity so you won't see a wireless bill. There is no wireless setup--you are ready to shop, purchase and read right out of the box." (http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Amazons...pf_rd_i=507846)

If this "clearly" means "no free delivery" in some universe, it must be where all the structured financing guarantees came from.

[Daithi]

SirBruce,

You can nitpick a sentence of the original poster, but the bottom line is that he didn't mischaracterize anything.

[sirbruce]

Amazon isn't charging for wireless delivery of it's *own* books, it's charging for the wireless delivery of *your* books *via email* if you want to send them that way.

Look, if you want to, you can put your own MOBI books on a website and still download them wirelessly via the web browser *for free*. Although again, Amazon always reserved the right to charge for web browser usage in the future if it gets out of hand.

[sirbruce]

Originally Posted by Daithi

You can nitpick a sentence of the original poster, but the bottom line is that he didn't mischaracterize anything.

Well, that's one opinion.

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Amazon isn't charging for wireless delivery of it's *own* books, it's charging for the wireless delivery of *your* books *via email* if you want to send them that way....

Phew, I finally understand this:

The English sentence

"No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments"

translates to

"Amazon isn't charging for wireless delivery of it's *own* books, it's charging for the wireless delivery of *your* books *via email* if you want to send them that way."

in Amazon-ian.

Thanks for clearing it up!

P.S. Now the Search results, which are not the "real" Search results, are starting to make sense, too.

[fugazied]

3G/Wireless data is expensive still. So yeah those fees are reasonable considering Amazons costs. We have poor coverage here so I usually USB transfer anyway..

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by fugazied

3G/Wireless data is expensive still. So yeah those fees are reasonable considering Amazons costs. We have poor coverage here so I usually USB transfer anyway..

Hey, I am not arguing that Amazon should give it away.

But their advertising implies something else. In bold letters. This is where the issue is, for me.

And in reality, they probably more than make it up in increased market share and current and future sales.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by Sonist

"No monthly wireless bills, data plans, or commitments".

This isn't ambiguous in wireless phone vendor speak. You could see almost identical language describing any "pay as you go" service. There is no monthly bill, data is $0.15 per MB (which isn't a "plan" because it involves no monthly fee), and there is no payment at all unless you ask Amazon to send you a personal document (no commitment).