Quote:
Originally Posted by LCIII
The Kindle devices look great. My reservations about Kindle/Amazon more generally are:
- If I move overseas, buying books through Amazon might be more limited.
- Amazon seems pretty aggressive about the walled garden. I'm more of an open-source guy, and Kobo seems more compatible that philosophy (although I know Kobo isn't actually open source).
- I've heard that Amazon puts a lot of pressure on publishers to lower their prices, and the publishers and authors are feeling squeezed by it. I don't know what the various players' financials look like (maybe Amazon is talking more about cleaning up publishers' inefficiencies), but overall it doesn't look good.
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Without getting into the ethics or the economics, I'll simply say that having made the switch from Amazon US to a more local Kobo account nearly 3 years ago, I can count on one hand the number of times a book I wanted was only available on Amazon, not Kobo. Buying books directly available on the Kobo is as easy as doing so on a Kindle is. And, imo, the hardware is better value for money, in terms of features for price.