Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
There's nothing wrong with people taking a public domain text and trying to sell it. It's not that that I'm complaining about. It's that they do it so badly!
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No, the complaint was mine, but it seems we effectively concur anyway: my issue was their charging for it if they don't value-add by at least formatting it decently (and some recognition of the need for visual appeal wouldn't go astray either - does aesthetics count for nothing?)
Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
I suspect Amazon don't try to weed out the really poorly formatted versions because they don't want to spend the resources necessary to do it, and then defend having done it.
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Really? Amazon's a business. It's a product being sold. What's wrong with them saying "this doesn't meet our standards"? Apple does it all the time. In my book Amazon (anyone) still has
some level of duty of care to the customer in respect to the quality of what it sells. I hate the fact that they've become such a 500lb gorilla that they can earn their (sometimes massive) cut merely by virtue of the fact that they're
there, as if that simple fact of their marketing dominance is all they need to be doing for us and the rest of the obligation for satisfaction in the transaction is on our side. Sure, if you don't like what you get you can send it back for a refund (or is that not the case with eBooks? I've never bought an eBook from Amazon), but is that really a sufficient answer to the world? Along with aesthetics what happened to aspiration? I dislike the fact that the limit of Amazon's customer service or awareness is also the limit of what's merely required by applicable legislation.
I know, my dissatisfaction is part of getting older and more wistful for what's gone and ever-more curmudgeonly. Lately, the changes seem to be measurable on a daily basis.
