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Originally Posted by notimp
As for the current state of the discussion in here, I see that "compartmentalization" is used to pin down the argument to the current status quo - which is to say, disregard the overall structural issue in favor of the little patched open loopholes, that allow the "old guard" in here to proclaim, that the ecosystem still works perfectly well - without any need to do something about the overarching issue.
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Sigh. Once again, there is no overarching issue.
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The line of arguing goes as follows -
"Why would amazon ever want to be in the public library space - they are a company" >
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This is going back to what I said
HERE, right?
So, am I wrong?
Has Amazon started running an online library?
Did the fact that they have a partnership with OverDrive that allows you to read library books (from the libraries that do, in fact, exist), similar to the partnership OverDrive has with Adobe, and which it is hoped they will have with Kobo (now that they are both owned by Rakuten)
suddenly become more relevant, or are you just agreeing with my line of reasoning?
If you want to disagree with that statement, then do so -- but simply stating that I said so, does not make us
magically know why you might disagree.
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"Of course they use the -pay per pages read model- in their Amazon unlimited subscription line of business, but what does this have to do with selling books?" >
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As shalym said,
Are you going to tell us, then?
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"Of course they auto deliver all "sold" books in a format no one but the company itself is allowed to produce anymore, but what if no one is actively using those autodelivered -kfx books?"
(This is the "we dont have to position ourselves against the format" - because we'd like to ignore its existence and demand, that the rest of the consumer market does as well (as in - not use it at all, although its the standard for auto delivery. And there is no opt out. Or opt in for that matter.))
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I am still not sure what the problem is supposed to be.
You have gone to no small effort with this thread to tell us it is a problem, but you still haven't, you know, "explained".
What does it matter, which format Amazon defaults to, out of several easily-available formats?
The fact that most people leave the defaults alone (in all aspects of life) is not a moral problem with the Kindle ecosystem -- although as a sociological trend, you can feel free to worry about it as much as you like
somewhere else.
As it is said, "there is nothing new under the sun".
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"Of course Amazon is producing a "book", that no one but they themselves and the devices their factory lines produce can a understand anymore - and of course its the only format with certain layout benefits, which increase readability" >
"But Amazon isnt owning the rights to those books, especially in the self publishing space, the author is - so the company cant be seen as heavily tightening its grip and trying to become more and more of a content player in the industry - shedding its former role as a distributing entity and a manufacturer of reading devices."
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Your argument would be considerably stronger re. "iron grip" buzzwords, if it weren't trivially easy to get another easily-understood format in about ten seconds.
Or if the original MOBI and AZW3 formats were easily understandable themselves. Once again, it is oh-so-easy to look at the past and say "this reverse-engineered format is open enough for my ideological happiness", and much harder to actually go into the past and say "I have no way of knowing if this will ever be reverse-engineered, it makes me very ideologically unhappy".
Or if it wasn't the same thing Kobo, B&N, Google, Apple, and every other seller of DRMed content
did first.
- Kobo KEPUB
- Apple iBooks (not DeDRMed because of lack of marketshare ==> lack of interest). Cannot even be downloaded on a non-Apple device, and good luck getting anything out of the default iOS download.

- Google Play Books obfuscated who-knows-what-the-hell-that-thing-is
- B&N partitioned userstore has no access whatsoever to the store-bought files unless you root the device
- Amazon MOBI, AZW3, (both wide-open targets), and on certain devices, sometimes KFX
Unfortunately, it would
still be a weak argument, because that is still the definition of a distributing entity.
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"Of course Amazon is showing highly uncompetitive behavior in other digital goods markets they entered recently (kicking Google and Nvidia devices out of distribution, removing the most popular open source media player from their app store for dubious reasons), but they have never shown signs of not supporting the one legacy file format we need to still be able to read anything from outside the Amazon ecosystem on our Kindles."
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Ad hominem
> /dev/null
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"Of course they arent supporting those legacy file formats in terms of ongoing development, current features,
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Please define the term "legacy format".
Cue facial expression of acute embarrassment (yes, on
your part).
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or even delivery to the Kindle, without having to introduce a PC and some cables into the equation - but thats all we need to proclaim a valid perspective for the future of Kindle eReading and - "
"Of course we already have compartmentalized that there ought to be "Books" and "Books behind glass" ("its just a container for delivery, we dont have to understand it") - its the future, get with it."
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Again, that is different from every other vendor on the planet, how????
By definition, if you care about re-using the file, you need a computer anyway. I fail to see why that is a burden.
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And of course, whenever we speak about legacy formats in the industry - we talk about them as "being bagage", except when it comes to Kindle file formats we still understand, but that Amazon isnt directly distributing anymore - at which point they become "a valid path into the future".
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I think I said this before, but it is worth repeating.
Over-engineered new things are stupid.
AZW3 is an excellent format. As is EPUB2.
They are both being replaced. Both by formats which add a lot of features few people want.
I would be perfectly happy if neither of them existed, because as far as I am concerned, the so-called "legacy" formats need no further development or features,
because they are freaking perfect already.
Change for the sake of change is an idiot's endeavor.
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I proclaim, that this community has at least a little bit of an "identity crisis" alongside the "Apple cant do anything wrong" paradigm we know in the industry all to well.
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They can both do a lot of things wrong.
In the case of Apple, they have done few things right, except fool a lot of people into erroneously thinking their operating system is aesthetically pleasing. And making a lot of money, of course. (The two are related).
Amazon isn't quite that evil yet.
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Attempts to argue, that the ecosystem is becoming increasingly problematic are being countered with "it still works for us here" (who are happy to prolong a part of the ecosystem fewer and fewer people will come in contact with) - and thats everything we should be concerned with. Mostly as tech experts.
The overall message that is needed to make this work is not congruent and entirely relies on loopholes in the new paradigm Amazon is creating to foster their concept of the future of eReading.
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No loopholes, just ignoring the PR message that "all your old things are belong to us"
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Also - when I proclaim that Amazon is in no way positioned to be an entity that has cultural development or plurality of public opinion in their DNA - thats fine, because Hollywood hasnt either? Also - of course, Amazon isnt a content creator in the eBook space - they just own the current eBook (no one else can create it, no one else should be able to understand it) format in the space - and their ambitions on other sectors (digital content) should be seen entirely separate from...
Oh come on...
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Yes... you "proclaim". Thank you for acknowledging that you don't actually
try to "argue" or "explain".
But moving on...
I notice you seem to have forgotten to write the end of your sentences. Because they are missing. Also, I am having difficulty trying to work out what you are saying, because some of the sentence fragments don't even include words that I have so far associated with this thread.

Please clarify those sentences.