People with Kindles are like robots in another world

[ProfCrash]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Agreed, with a big caveat. The current ebook market discourages a competitive marketplace. Those who buy a Kindle are buying their books from Amazon. No exceptions.

You do realize that you listed the exceptions right after saying no exceptions?

There are plenty of folks who buy from stores other than Amazon and plenty of EPUb readers who buy from Amazon. I would agree that the vast majority of folks buy from the store their e-reader is tied to but that includes Nook, Kobo, and Sony users. People tend to shop where things are easiest for them. For E-readers that normally means the store they can connect to on their device.

[DiapDealer]

I know it was the "no exceptions" that I took exception to. "No exceptions" is not another way of saying "generally speaking," which would have made perfect sense.

[Malcolmf]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Those who buy a Kindle are buying their books from Amazon. No exceptions.

Let me join the horde of exceptions.
I bought a kindle for reading project gutenberg files. I pick up free books occasionally from Amazon if they're linked here (and then remove any DRM). A couple of free books from authors web pages that I've converted from HTML. And PDFs of old books from Google books or the Internet archive. There's more free stuff than I can ever read, without having to pay Amazon a penny.
I don't have a wireless router, and there seem to be no public access wifi spots within miles of here, so getting books from Amazon isn't quite as frictionless as Amazon intended. I've never been able to connect to any wifi network so all files have to be loaded via the USB port, and I can't register my Kindle. I had to jailbreak it and put in a fake registration just to get collections working!
(And while I was at it, I loaded Duokan on the reader, so I can read Epubs.)

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

For years, I've been saying that what small bookstores need is to work together on a method to sell ebooks easily through their own store portal, giving people a reason to keep coming in. But did anyone listen to me? Nooooo!...

Hold on... why do I have the feeling I've said this before?

[orlok]

Originally Posted by kennyc

"You will be assimilated"

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

For the record, that is a reference to tea.

I think you're confusing it with Assamulated .

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by meeera

These people never saw me as a kid, immersed in a paperback, walking smack into a lamppost.

I rode my bike into a fence, and ended up in the hospital with an infected knee.

[Sydney's Mom]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Those who buy a Kindle are buying their books from Amazon. No exceptions.

"Hand goes up as another exception." I have bought considerably more books outside of Amazon compared to books puchased through Amazon.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by meeera

These people never saw me as a kid, immersed in a paperback, walking smack into a lamppost.

In elementary school I perfected the skill of walking while reading. I used to go from my classroom, through the swarm of other kids, out to the schoolbus, ride the bus home, get off the bus, and then walk home without ever taking my eyes off of my book, and that was long before 99.9% of the population had heard of ebooks. :-)

[ebooks having existed since the 60s, I can't fully claim that this was before ebooks]

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

"Hand goes up as another exception." I have bought considerably more books outside of Amazon compared to books puchased through Amazon.

That being said I do think that the majority of Kindle owners probably do buy only from Amazon and aren't even aware of (or don't care) other options.

[BeccaPrice]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

I rode my bike into a fence, and ended up in the hospital with an infected knee.

I used to read while riding my bike too! until the day I tried to put the kickstand down as i was still moving, without losing my place, and sliced into my Achilles tendon. (didn't *quite* sever it all the way through, thank heavens!)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

For years, I've been saying that what small bookstores need is to work together on a method to sell ebooks easily through their own store portal, giving people a reason to keep coming in. But did anyone listen to me? Nooooo!...

Hold on... why do I have the feeling I've said this before?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_vu

[hn333]

Originally Posted by LovesMacs

"Kindles are just a phase and they won’t last."

He may be correct, just not in the way he thinks. Ten years from now, the reading market may have moved entirely to LCD screens.

Ten years from now no one will be using LCD. It's already on its way out.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by hn333

Ten years from now no one will be using LCD. It's already on its way out.

That... is an aggressive estimate.
Say twenty and you might be right.
But since LCD panels have usable lifetimes in excess of ten years, even if production stopped today, they would still be usable and in use 10 years from now.

Even if you mean that no *vendor* will be selling new LCD-based products in ten years the odds are against that prediction. LCD is so entrenched and widely used that it is cheaper and more effective to spend money refining it than developing an all-different alternative. (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=180252)

LCD light-valve tech is relatively cheap, well-understood, and still has room to improve. So far it has smoked "superior" competitors like PDP and SED and is still outracing OLED, the current "great hope" for an LCD successor.

At some point LCD *will* be superseded but there isn't any candidate out there that could totally displace it in just ten years.

But its fun to imagine what the tech that succeeds it would be like: (way) cheaper than OLED, more saturated than Mirasol, less power hungry and more durabe than PDP... It would have to be a wonder tech.

[BearMountainBooks]

When your livelihood is at stake, you say strange things. Booksellers view them as a huge threat -- much like a bunch of people walking around with guns and you don't have one.

[Schneicw]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And, since I'm not all that sociable, I'd rather stay in there (currently, Russia in the year 1636) than stop and talk to the likes of Kindle haters like him.

Off topic but what book is that?