04-22-2009, 05:34 PM | #376 | |
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I could get all my paper books from the library and never spend a dime aside from the small fee I paid to get my library card. I don't. I get some that way but it's worth some money to me to get the books I want when I want them. I could buy all used or new paper books but it's worth something to me to have hundreds of books with me and the ability to get more most of the time even when I'm not at home or near a book shop. It's worth something to me to have my books conveniently searchable and to be able to click on a word and get a definition. I could do this with a tablet PC but it's also worth something to me to have something light and comfortable to read that will go for days on a charge rather than hours. Are the current readers the perfect solution for this? In my opinion, no, but the level of benefit they provide is obviously worth the price to the hundreds of thousands of people that have them. They're not worth it to you. That's fine. I have no need to convince you otherwise but it's simply not logical to argue that merely because something isn't the most economically sound option that it makes no sense at all. Last edited by Alisa; 04-23-2009 at 01:04 PM. |
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04-22-2009, 09:53 PM | #377 |
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what a sad excuse for a thread, so sad
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04-24-2009, 01:41 AM | #378 |
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04-24-2009, 01:22 PM | #379 | |
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Without logging in. So you don't have to log in to post, which means you don't have to have a working account to post. |
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04-24-2009, 01:31 PM | #380 |
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04-24-2009, 01:57 PM | #381 | |||||
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Forty dollars a year to keep it charged sounds like quite a bit--where are you getting that number? Most of the time the Amazon e-book is cheaper than the corresponding paper book. The margin isn't as great with paperback books--usually a dollar or two instead of six. On rare occasion, the e-book is more expensive than the paper book. In my experience this has been when the paperback was recently released and the Kindle price hadn't yet "caught up." I usually solve this problem by checking back in a week or two. Quote:
True. I'm sorry, I thought you were listing disadvantages? Quote:
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Just for one example, I recently moved into a house with a serious dandelion problem. Every morning I spend 2 hours pulling dandelions. This job got a lot less tedious when I started putting my Kindle in a shoulder bag and having it read to me while I worked. I don't think I would enjoy that with a laptop, supposing a laptop could even do that, and could do that for 2 hours while folded up in a shoulder bag without overheating or battery life issues. Furthermore, either I'm not the only one who finds an e-book reader a good value, or we're all a pack of fools, and why are you hanging out with a pack of fools, again? |
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04-24-2009, 02:32 PM | #382 | |
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I agree whole heartedly with that. I'm very much willing to pay for luxury. It's part of the reason I got a lot of education and wanted to make decent money. I didn't pick up a Kindle to save money. I picked it up for convenience. Don't have to go to a store or library to get a book. I don't have books cluttering up the house that will only be read once, or have to find time to sell or donate after reading. I work hard and a lot of hours so convenience and luxury are very important to me. |
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04-24-2009, 03:09 PM | #383 | |
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My point was, it is unclear if it is new Amazon policy. Or if it has been Amazon's policy all along. Or if it is Amazon's policy at all, or just the opinion of one CSR. It is also unclear, how exactly it applies to the Kindle account: Is the Kindle account completely separate, and thus completely unaffected by a ban on purchases. Or is the user banned from buying books, but can still use Wispernet to download already purchased books? Or is the user limited to updates only? Can the user continue to utilize Amazon's conversion service? And so on. Again, IMHO, Amazon needs to state a clear policy, otherwise these posts will continue to appear. Oh, and while they are at it, Amazon needs to tell us what exactly the Search function does, since it apparently doesn't spit out all the available results a user might be looking for. And it hides that fact from the user. |
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04-24-2009, 05:24 PM | #384 | |
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There is no way on earth that the Kindle, which needs charging for maybe 2 hours once a week (to be generous) uses nearly the same amount of electricity in a year that my entire house uses in the entire month of, say, February. I would estimate more like $2-$3 a year. |
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04-25-2009, 01:21 PM | #385 | |
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For some real world figures, the Kindle 1 adapter is rated at maximum 36 watts on the AC input which the Kindle would never actually require. I looked up a chart of electrical costs and the higher priced states are around 15 cents per kilowatt hour. Even if someone was charging their Kindle for eight hours a day every day (which is impossible) the annual cost would be $15.77. In real life use it would be more like $7 a year for the states with the highest electricity charges. Last edited by avaloncourt; 04-25-2009 at 01:31 PM. |
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05-01-2009, 03:19 PM | #386 | ||||
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WWW (http) was introduced in 1991 and the first general-purpose web browser, Mosaic, was released in 1993. Even before WWW, a vast but disorganized and largely hidden amount of information was available in network news groups, ftp sites and gopher sites. NetNews was used for everything from Q&A groups (including various school/homework topics) to distribution of research papers, technical documentation, software (both open source and pirated), and, of course, porn. Pirated music became popular a little later when the MP3 standard was created. Parallel and more accessible to the general public were the commercial on-line services such as AOL, CompuServe and Prodigy, each of which ultimately open gateways to the Internet. But for $10.95 to to $15.95 per month, these services provided easily-navigated access to a wealth of information for computer users in the 1980's and early '90's. Quote:
And this is a key problem that computers solved: The ability to quickly store, analyze, reorganize and update lots of data. True: if you're filling-in a shipping label, a computer is not the solution. But if you're typing a three-page report for presentation (or a final grade), or playing "what if" with budget numbers or product specifications, a computer is the only solution that makes sense. Even discussions such as these, which have gone on for more than 20 years on the Internet via on-line BBS systems (prior to WWW) and NetNews, would be impossible without the computer. Whether you agree or disagree, these discussions are worthwhile from an educational and developmental perspective. Quote:
Hardware cost, DRM and overpriced media are the answers. If you gave the hardware away or made it so cheap as to be a non-issue, you will drive adoption. More units sold means more media purchased. More media purchased potentially means cheaper media. Problem: Amazon can't afford to give it away. On the other hand, you can make the media less expensive than traditional media. The media is already protected by DRM so there's no secondary market for used ebooks. Cut the price of media by half that of store-bought books and give the average consumer a real benefit for switching formats. For publishers, if you can get the majority of your customers to switch to DRM-protected format you wind up gaining sales by taking library loans and used book sales off the table. Or go with another concept that's helped attract consumers to the on-line music and video stores: offer a monthly subscription that allows you pay one price each month and read as many books as you want. The catch is you can't permanently store the book, and maybe you can only have two or four active titles at a time, but after you mark one title "finished" you can access another title. I'd pay $250 for a Kindle (what I believe represents a fair value for the technology) plus $14.95/month for this unlimited download service. Sounds like time for a book sale! |
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05-01-2009, 04:19 PM | #387 | |
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05-01-2009, 10:53 PM | #388 | |
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05-01-2009, 11:34 PM | #389 |
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I thought the Kindle was overpriced - for heaven's sake, I could get books from the library for free. So, I had to wait, I couldn't read what I wanted when I wanted, and I had to decide in advance which book to bring with me, and I hoped it wasn't a hardcover. Then, I got the Kindle, just because I couldn't get a book I really wanted to read for 4 months (the book would have cost $4!)
Now that I have had the Kindle since Thanksgiving, if you took it away, and said I could only have it back for $1000, I'd be there (If you said I could have folders for $2000, I would be there). It is small enough that I take it EVERYWHERE. I can read for 2 minutes - I never waste time waiting anymore. I get what I want to read immediately, and I don't even have to get into the car, search for parking at the mall, have to special order the book and come back next week, . . . . Last edited by Sydney's Mom; 09-11-2009 at 05:43 PM. |
05-02-2009, 12:34 PM | #390 | |
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BTW, it's $21.51 and $633.53, respectively. So the Kindle is actually a little more than half the price of the old reader. That's not bad. Internet connections are a bit more now but you get a lot more functionality out of broadband so I would argue it's worth more. Oh, and I'm curious. How much did ebooks cost back in 98? |
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