Authors use non Amazon tools and formats to create "works" - but Amazon then has to convert them into the final format that goes into distribution. Thats the actual "book". What does it matter to the public how the publishers manuscripts were formated, and if they used Word or Latex to create them?
It (.kfx) is not the only format out there. It also isn't the only format still usable on Kindles, but it is the main file format - from this point forward.
Amazon then ads a "feature layer" on top of it (hyphenation (its not a their invention, its grammar), ligatures, ... (the same, ok - maybe they own the font...), and packs it into a proprietary format - that then goes into distribution.
Authors and publishers cant create the final book anymore (grammar and featureset). The product that gets distributed "has" to be created by the distributer as part of a distribution agreement. Each and every time. If you choose not to do that - on the Kindle platform you loose entire featuresets, you don't play "in the first league" of current digital books, and so on...
That the eBook creation process is also compartmentalized and conceptualized as "something you never share with anyone" has been part of my main argument from the very beginning. I have to admit though - that I havent looked into Amazons Comic Book formats or pdf equivalents so far. Nevertheless, when this practice started to affect their main eBook format it had my undivided attention.
Your "functioning compromise" always includes Amazon as a mediator in the middle. But understand, that Amazon has to play this role on each and every book that you want to make this assessment about. They don't just provide an ecosystem - they became an integral part in the process - namely they
have to produce every book that is offered in the "most current format".
Thats the issue.
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@Cinisajoy:
The idea that the means of productions of books should not only be cheap ("free bibles") but also publicly obtainable and distributed "played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, Reformation, the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific revolution and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy and the spread of learning to the masses." src:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann...rg#cite_note-2
All of modern science (Critical rationalism, Falsificationism) depends on the ability to cite entire paragraphs of works and future developments in AI and machine learning will only be part of the same discourse and scientific tradition, if open file formats arent a thing of the past. Google themselves have created tools and databases (scholar, ngram, books) that depended on the openness and machine readability of books, spanning centuries. When libraries decided to sue them for having accumulated content against their interests (made it searchable, machine readable, even republished it, ..) it was deemed fair use by your judicial systems. It also depends on the ability of independent (from each other) entities to create and distribute scientific journals, on the ability of certain universities being able to opt in and opt out of buying from certain publishing systems, it depends on books being part of libraries where anyone can get public access to even rare texts and expensive publications and so on.
When the individual user buys a .kfx - citation is limited to the Amazon ruleset, search is limited, ownership is nonexistent (only Amazon owns everything that has the file extension kfx...), ...
Somewhere in all of this the idea of public libraries that aren't just "contract bound book service centers" needs some aspects of it to work as well.
None of those are important considerations for your "banner ad with text that Amazon has to make money on as well" reconceptualization of the modern ebook.
The rest of the considerations come from the fact that a few months ago we had a de facto feature parity with the ePub standard as Amazon consumers - while now with .kfx whe should be considered "happy" when we still can get an older version of the same book via a loophole Amazon provides, because we are still allowed to understand that...
At least acknowledge that for most readers with .kfx practically every aspect of "what an eBook is" changed. Then we can have our discussion about which aspects "really needed to be open" or "really need to remain distributed".
Yes you can opt out from DRM - but opting out of the main Kindle file format is something most Authors and distributers probably wouldn't do "just to behave in an ethical fashion".
I don't even want to scold them for behaving differently, of course they do, I just tend to be angry and not get over the point that they started to give away their production rights from one day to the next - nonetheless, to the most prominent monopoly distributer of books in our time. For free.
For a promise of "more protection".
Of course it is Amazons ecosystem - but it also is their promise to sell us electronic books (use DRM if you have to), and not just 2 cent sticker images of them in a curated world of what formerly were independently created and produced, diversely distributed, and openly accessible works of culture, to anyone that cared about even a single one of them.
If you as an "action oriented community" want to know "what to do next" - I have laid out my thoughts on this in a previous posting. I'm not connected enough within this community to actually establish a plan of action for you, or even host certain discussions, I only can openly address aspects of what I see happening - for the most part.
I've also commented on certain political aspects concerning release policies, or how this community likes to be structured from an organizational standpoint (mostly at least showing some understanding) - but really, thats about all I can do.