Quote:
Originally Posted by bgalbrecht
Unlike the epub reader manufacturers, Amazon probably has a good idea of what percentage of Kindle owners are using sideloaded material based on the number of users who are "sideloading via Whispersync". If Amazon decides the average user never sideloads anything, and that it causes more support issues than it's worth, they might discontinue the service. B&N dropped the SD slot and the ability to download books to the PC, and I'm sure they decided that they could do both without a great impact to the bottom line. The SD slot makes it more likely that the customer will buy some books from alternate retailers, and what retailer wants to encourage that? Maybe if you're the only retailer with that feature, it's worth it.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Why not? They've taken away other features like an SD card slot, audio, TTS, computer controllable collections. But to be honest, I doubt side loading will ever go away. If it did, Kindles would tank.
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Well, Amazon removed the audio since audiobooks more than ebooks came from Amazon
and it was a feature that wasn't being used.
SD slot because it was more support issues than it was worth.
Computer controllable collections after idiots got ahold of the tools to manipulate them and managed to screw up their collections horribly, then
complained to Amazon about their third-party tools. Amazon decided the quickest solution was to remove an exploit that allowed idiots to screw with the controls. Since they never supported it to begin with.
Sideloading ebooks, on the other hand, is the kind of thing you have to do. Leaving aside the issue of how the heck do you know who is sideloading -- most sideloaded books are NOT sent through Amazon's servers, and a surprising number are probably downloaded from MYK and USB-loaded, think people with wired and not wireless internet... and there is no way to distinguish between the two without extensive logging of account activity.
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And I can just hear the complaints being sent to the Justice Department the instant it becomes utterly impossible to use DRM-free content on a Kindle.
Nah, Amazon is more than happy using mutually incompatible DRM schemes (thanks, BWM publishers) together with the AZW3 format to make the barrier just high enough to discourage the most casual doers, and allowing the people who really care enough to make it happen, do so. They are the type who would otherwise jump ship altogether.