Kindle - Critical Questions

[geemac]

Originally Posted by djordje

I am afraid that I detect a touch of unnecessary paranoia in your post :-). Please don't mind what I say as we all tend to be wary of the Internet, striving to preserve what little privacy that's been left in this unfortunate 21st century.

The main issue that your post hinges on is whether the new Kindle (which I pre-ordered as well) is _really_ the best ebook reader at the lowest price. As someone in the thread mentioned, it is most probably just yet another plasticky gadget with new bells and whistles made with a sole purpose -- to earn money for Amazon. I see nothing wrong in that, I even applaud their well thought out financial planning. I firmly believe that my Sony Touch is much better made and a lot sturdier and better looking than the new Kindle, but still I intend to buy this new thing. Meaning that Amazon have achieved what they wanted --- they made me, just like so many other people, go ahead and buy what I do not actually _need_ but feel that I _may_ feel better if I got it because I _might_ need it.

This last line that I wrote is the essence of good financial "philosophy", in a nutshell, of course.

My suggestion for you: chill out and enjoy reading on your Kindle, that's what it was made for. Another piece of advice, if I may (I am a teacher, thus don't feel offended, please) -- do use "bought" for the past tense of buy, please... :-)

Regards from Nis, Serbia.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought is was impolite to correct peoples spelling or grammar on an open forum. I am not a teacher and can barely walk upright

[ricsmania]

About the price, it's probably the same strategy as in videogames.

Most videogame consoles (the most notable exception is the Wii) are sold for a price lower than the costs. Why? Because companies don't want to sell consoles, they want to sell games. So they partially subsidize the console prices so that more people buy them and they sell more games.

That's very important because games have almost no variable costs (cost per unit) but have a very high fixed cost (overall cost no matter how many units sold). That's because game development is very expensive (we are talking 7 figures here) but the actual games are basically a plastic disc inside a paper box.

So, back to the Kindle, Amazon doesn't want to sell e-readers, they want to sell e-books. So they can sell Kindles for a price lower than the costs and still make a profit by selling books. And I imagine e-books are pretty profitable.

That's why the Kindle and the Nook can afford having very low prices, which on the other hand makes life very hard for independent hardware makers, with no book stores.

[shanghaichica]

Im quite happy about what amazon are doing for the ebook industry. The way I see it is that because of the low price of the device more people will now buy a kindle including people who would never have bought an ereader before. This means that more people will now be buying books. I imagine/hope this will lead to two things, ebooks will become cheaper and more publishers will produce ebook versions of their latest releases and even past releases because they can see that more people are buying.

[djordje]

You do make a good point. However, I was in "one of those moods" today and probably went a bit far. However, this kind of thing irks me. It was quite similar to a post in a forum I read where "lose" instead of "loose" is commonplace. I will loose it definately :-), even though English is my second language. I admire your tolerance and would like to be just like you, tolerant of these little oversights and errors.

[SteveEisenberg]

I've ordered a Kindle 3. But re it being the best at the lowest price:

1. No reviewers have had it long enough to fairly crown it as best. I'd wait to see what Consumer Reports says after a rigorous comparison.

2. In the US, the Kobo eReader is $149.99 from Borders with free shipping. And you get a $20 gift card. And Borders, unlike Amazon, participates with affinity rebate sites like eBates.com, bringing the price down by another $6 or so. And you get double Border bucks, which might mean a little something to someone. Price negatives for the Kobo are the $10.99 higher base price and the likelihood (I haven't checked) that Borders charges sales tax in more states than Amazon. Adding it all up, I'd say that the Kobo is a smidgen cheaper than the non-3G Kindle. Also a consideration is that, according to borders.com, the Kobo "Usually ships in 24 hours."

Re privacy concerns regarding electronic records of what you read, US librarians take deleting such records, after you are done reading the book, quite seriously. Personally, I would prefer that our library keeps a record I could search of everything I have taken out, even at the price of that record also being available to law enforcement on presentation of a subpoena. But that's me. I don't ridicule people who want what they read to be strictly private, but, personally, I don't care.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Can we give up with the Amazon removing 1984 from peoples Kindles please? That was in the past, a mistake happened and Amazon learnt from it. Who is to say that Adobe wont when ADE checks for updates send what ebooks you have then disables ones that do not have distribution rights in your country? (IP check people, IP check). Lets look at Sony, and what about B&N, and now Kobo with their desktop software? Every one of them could enforce some form of control. I have said enough on this 1984 fiasco, it is 2010 people, 2010, let it go.

They cannot use an IP address to check if I have the rights to a book that is on my Reader. The reason they cannot do so is because I could be on vacation to another country. So if they used the IP I was connected to to delete eBooks from me, that would get them a nice law suit.

[JSWolf]

Why are some of you so paranoid? Amazon has not removed any eBooks since they removed 1984. I think they won't be doing that again. So give it up, move on and enjoy reading.

[Kumabjorn]

Maybe the OP is from a country that until recently kept very close tabs on its citizens and their behavior? I know that I would probably develop some kind of paranoia against authorities and huge organizations if I had lived in a society like that. If you want to remain anonymous I suppose you need to exchange your electronic devices every two or three months.

[AdrianM]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

If you're worried about this kinda thing, best buy your books used, at small shops that don't track your purchases. Pay cash. Maybe wear a disguise, lol.

lol

[catsittingstill]

Originally Posted by Achiever

Hellow

Why amazon selling the best e-reader for the lowest price? backround?

A combination of getting into the market relatively early, having a great deal of purchasing power (negotiating lower prices for components) and a large customer base to sell to (larger volume also means lower prices) and making a real commitment to e-books, including paying people to spend a lot of time and sweat designing a well-made, easy to use e-book reader that would connect seamlessly to their store. The price war with Nook probably helped to force Kindle prices down farther, faster, than they otherwise would have gone. Getting started early and having money to spend on the design team meant Amazon had the capability to make several redesigns with improved features.

Is Amazon collecting data about the users and sending it via kindle?

I think, they do. Because your e-reader is connected 24/7 with the internet..

If you don't like having a reader that is connected to the internet, it's easy to turn the Kindle's connection off. I leave mine off most of the time because the 3G drains the battery pretty quickly.

Is amazon doing this, to analyze & study the behavior of readers all over the world ? What and when they read ?

They analyze their customer's behavior by analyzing buying patterns. If they were really analyzing my reading I wouldn't be getting all these recommendations for religious crud just because I buy occasional presents for my in-laws.

Why amazon can and did delete Ebooks remote on the kindle?
like the ebook "George Orwells - 1984 or animal farm"

Did you hear it? A while ago amazon deleted 2 allready buyd and downloaded ebooks from the kindle without even warning the users.

We're a large group of people passionately interested in e-books, e-book readers, copyright issues, digital rights management, and privacy. In other words, yes, we heard. Anyone at mobileread who missed out on that was either on vacation or dead that month.

Is there a way to disable the whispernet or Wi-Fi Connection?
(Normal Way or maybe even some Hacks or other things)

Yes, as previously noted, K1s have a hardware switch and K2s have a menu option that turns off the 3G internet connection. K3s can also turn Whispernet (both WiFi and 3G) off.

I hope this helps. If you are seriously uncomfortable with a reader that connects to the internet you might be happier with one of the fine readers made by Astak. There's a forum here for them; you should check that out.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

They cannot use an IP address to check if I have the rights to a book that is on my Reader. The reason they cannot do so is because I could be on vacation to another country. So if they used the IP I was connected to to delete eBooks from me, that would get them a nice law suit.

I was merely making an example that other companies could collect information about your reading habits and use it negatively against you. I'm certainly not saying they do. Remember people, ebook stores (like Amazon and B&N) are in the business of selling you a product within their contractual obligations (ie: geographic restrictions). They are not here to police their customers!!!

[Kevin R]

Do not question, just purchase, purchase, purchase...

[captkjaneway]

Blimey Governments using what I read against me.........I promise never to buy another Katie Price/Jeffrey Archer/Jackie Collins book again in my life just in case the Government thinks I am brain dead ;p

[suecsi]

Originally Posted by captkjaneway

Blimey Governments using what I read against me.........I promise never to buy another Katie Price/Jeffrey Archer/Jackie Collins book again in my life just in case the Government thinks I am brain dead ;p

[Achiever]

Thanks for your Anwers, especially thanks to you who awnsered some Questions.

I just was asking the critical questions for everyone, who is concerned about their privacy. no offense.

We should wait till we have it and check it out.

Maybe in a while (hopefully) a experienced developer will check the structure and internal functions, hack it, and develope some tweaked firmware with some more privacy for k3


until then.. have a good time and keep reading & learning!

greetings

Achiever