Now that all illusions concerning Amazons new file format and the attempt to get it fully opened (to the extent where we get fully readable documents out of the container, and we can create fully standard compliant files without resorting to an Amazon binary that we still don't understand the behavior of entirely) - are sufficiently shattered -
I can ultimately say, that the title of this topic was wrongly chosen - and served more to hide Amazons intention in the bait and switch behind its most current ebook format (.kfx) between images of company structure that haven't had much to do with the issue at hand.
It never was a company structure issue.
I thought about, why this thread was like sunlight to a cave dweller for the mobileread Kindle dev community, as in that after some time they wouldn't even wan't to see it coming up again, they wouldn't want to discuss it, and they certainly wouldn't admit any responsibility for their non action - or in prolonging the image of a status quo that had changed already.
I always had a drive to look for acknowledgement or even a possible solution in the developer community, because to me they were responsible for maintaining the power structure, that came within the UI and usage experience of a Kindle eReader.
When they dismissed any responsibility and kicked the thread out of the developer forum, the issue was "defeated" in as far as it could be considered bad PR for anyone who touched it.
I especially was insistent, that normal users shouldnt be the ones that should have to champion the issue, because it still is complex, technical and something far too easily shoved into the "individual responsibility" corner - to ever become a possible popular talking point within Amazons broader customer base.
I even remember getting distinctly angry - when the developers of this community argued, that all that had to be provided was ONE OUT - regardless of how unpractical or unlikely it would be that people would use it over time - especially, when on the other side of the equation, the automatic wireless rollout of the new format had already begun.
Now I have a tool to show the dev community in this forum, why they were wrong - and that not caring about how defaults change should be seen as a form of neglect.
Again. Those are harsh words. But again, I am not trying to win over popular opinion as much as making the case, for why ignoring the structural implications of Amazons new file format - and not warning people what it changed in their daily routines, was very much a form of severe neglect.
The argument should have come out of the development community, but the the larger part of the blame goes to bloggers, the tech media, and the book scene, for not having written or talked about what had changed, with the introduction of the first eBook format that all of a sudden turned out "not fit for archival purposes".
I stumbled uppon
http://darkpatterns.org/ today, a website set up by coders and design professionals that saw that they were creating UI experiences that would trick users to follow certain behavior patterns that were harmfull to them, and unethical in their implementation.
I argue that this is what happened here. You can forget the entire vertical integration and "Amazon becoming too powerful" side of the argument - just looking into how it was established, that people now get their books autodelivered at scale in a format that not one of us can do anything substantial with (we don't understand the blob), makes the case.
The pattern for this was designed to accomplish a certain behavior shift. The intended behavior shift was unethical (Amazon .kfx books aren't books anymore, and took away entire featuresets that have been considered to be part of the DNA markup of books in the past 500 years, also of music (mp3), video (x264) and text (html) in the internet age) by design. By far the most substential issue in getting this tackled is, that tech media and the bloggersphere failed to even report on the file format changes that happened.
And the only people equipped with the mindset to be able to raise the issue, or find ways around it, are technical minded, most likely with a developer background.
That "but if you log into Amazons web interface, they still allow you to download an older format we can still understand - for the time being" even was used as a proper excuse, shows a failure of seeing the importance behind UI design patterns, and that you can specifically design workflows, that will make absolutely sure, hardly anyone will ever use them.
Which brings me back to the responsibility part. The independent dev scene around this product should have been the first one that rang the alarm bell. But they didn't think about design patterns. They thought about technicalities.
Thus no one from our side ever arrived at the battle. And the consumer lost.
For the coming years, make it your responsibility to learn how the (UI) design thats implemented in a software product changes behaviors and outcomes. Make it your responsibility to know, why defaults matter and why you talk about file formats, when they are changed.
As technically minded people, as developers - you now have your jumping off point to learn those things with the darkpatterns.org website. The people behind it saw their work being misused for a different purpose than they intended or they had been able to rationalize away.
When you are suggesting, that you should have the ability to define what an electronic book should be for millions of people to come - you better make sure, to also check if your implementation is ethical. Amazon didn't with .kfx. Now we have this issue - which only gets larger over time (as more and more people get delivered their "books" in the new format via the Kindles on board auto delivery ecosystem).