MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Amazon Kindle might be the worst thing that could happen to e-books?

CommanderROR · 11-19-2007, 02:39 PM

I'd agree with you on some points Bob, however I have to say the following:

We are not dealing with a small outfit here...this is Amazon we are talking about. They give you ebooks and they store them for you on their server. Now, let's assume you buy the Kindle V2 next year, then I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to use your old books again. Amazon would make sure of that.

While it's not nice to be bound to one provider, it is a system that works quite well as long as the provider is big and can stay in business for a long time. Amazon is such a provider and so is Apple. The iTunes store does the same thing for Tunes that the Kindle store does for books.
It gives you lots of convenience and OK prices and all it asks is that you use the whole package. Use the Hardware, use the Software, you can't get one without the other. If the system works well (and iTunes/iPod does work well, at least for me) then it will give a lot of customers what they want and also give the provider the security they want.

Also, the Kindle already offers a few "open" features like support for personal documents (you can get them in different formats and can have them converted from others for free and delivered to your Kindle (for a small fee) or load them onto the device yourself for free). You can also register several Kindle devices to one account, so your family can all share one e-library and several people can read the same book at the same time.

While I do not agree with the whole "closed ecosystem" that Amazon ist trying to force upon us, I'd gladly accept it if it means I get cheap and convenient access to a large selection of ebooks.

What bothers me far more (as I have pointed out a gazillion times today) is that once again there is a new product that could conquer the world but it is restricted to the US market...and this time it is restricted by hardware too, so importing it from the US would severely damage it's usefulness...

11-19-2007, 02:39 PM	#7
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	I'd agree with you on some points Bob, however I have to say the following: We are not dealing with a small outfit here...this is Amazon we are talking about. They give you ebooks and they store them for you on their server. Now, let's assume you buy the Kindle V2 next year, then I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to use your old books again. Amazon would make sure of that. While it's not nice to be bound to one provider, it is a system that works quite well as long as the provider is big and can stay in business for a long time. Amazon is such a provider and so is Apple. The iTunes store does the same thing for Tunes that the Kindle store does for books. It gives you lots of convenience and OK prices and all it asks is that you use the whole package. Use the Hardware, use the Software, you can't get one without the other. If the system works well (and iTunes/iPod does work well, at least for me) then it will give a lot of customers what they want and also give the provider the security they want. Also, the Kindle already offers a few "open" features like support for personal documents (you can get them in different formats and can have them converted from others for free and delivered to your Kindle (for a small fee) or load them onto the device yourself for free). You can also register several Kindle devices to one account, so your family can all share one e-library and several people can read the same book at the same time. While I do not agree with the whole "closed ecosystem" that Amazon ist trying to force upon us, I'd gladly accept it if it means I get cheap and convenient access to a large selection of ebooks. What bothers me far more (as I have pointed out a gazillion times today) is that once again there is a new product that could conquer the world but it is restricted to the US market...and this time it is restricted by hardware too, so importing it from the US would severely damage it's usefulness...