No More Free Amazon Cloud?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

FYI: The SendToKindle feature worked for me.

The file is on my Kindle, but not in the cloud.

Weird--I just tried using both the Send to Kindle app to send a doc from my PC and the Send to Kindle Firefox extension to send a web page, and both of them sent it to my Amazon Cloud Drive to the "My Send-to-Kindle Docs" folder. I can also see both of them in the cloud from my Kindle. Did you have the "Save to Amazon Cloud Drive" box checked in the Send to Kindle app?

Shari

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by shalym

Weird--I just tried using both the Send to Kindle app to send a doc from my PC and the Send to Kindle Firefox extension to send a web page, and both of them sent it to my Amazon Cloud Drive to the "My Send-to-Kindle Docs" folder. I can also see both of them in the cloud from my Kindle. Did you have the "Save to Amazon Cloud Drive" box checked in the Send to Kindle app?

Shari

I tested this on secondary account which didn't have a Cloud Drive.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by issybird

Eh, Amazon doesn't owe you anything. It's a business decision and you're free to take your business elsewhere. You might deplore the decision, regret the change, even think it'll be bad for Amazon's business, but I don't see how you can call it unfair. Did Amazon promise free storage in perpetuity and renege?

Legally it may not be wrong but they are likely to price a lot of customers out of it if they keep it up, and that is morally wrong I think. Certainly for $11.99 they could give their customers a bit more space than just 5 GB for non-photo files. And this is the 1st I had heard of the change over. What happened to sending out a notice to customers some time in advance of such a decision being made company policy? There is another word for such action as that. It's called common courtesy.

[McGonigle]

I got that message from Amazon as well this morning.

I'm not a Prime customer and only used AC for sending a couple of webpages to the Kindle app on my pc, and testing Cloud's capacity for storing mp3's - nothing that isn't already on my NAS.

Of course they can do whatever they like with their servers BUT;

Hullo Amazon; ever heard about advance notice as a courtesey to your customers?
So, if I don't do anything, what exactly happens, that is a bit obtuse I think.
Am I ever so glad that I never got anything "Kindle"
Nope. I didn't fall for your ruse and let myself be caught in your webspace.

Kindle App uninstalled and I'll take my book shopping elsewhere.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by crich70

Legally it may not be wrong but they are likely to price a lot of customers out of it if they keep it up, and that is morally wrong I think. Certainly for $11.99 they could give their customers a bit more space than just 5 GB for non-photo files. And this is the 1st I had heard of the change over. What happened to sending out a notice to customers some time in advance of such a decision being made company policy? There is another word for such action as that. It's called common courtesy.

They're giving you three months notice. Is that not sufficient?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They're giving you three months notice. Is that not sufficient?

Not really "notice." That's a free trial that comes with "strings" because if you don't cancel, you're going to be charged. Not that I'm necessarily saying they must give me notice. They are allowing me continued access to what is there, so I am satisfied with that (you can download it, move it elsewhere or whatnot so far as I know).

I guess I expected them to charge for it at some point. I don't think their email was very clear about whether I was automatically signed up for the trial. I had to go check to make sure they hadn't just decided to enroll me. (They had not). I also had to test the "sendtokindle" feature that I use on my blog as part of sending posts or stories (I use this feature so that readers can get free stories now and then). I was concerned that a feature I was using would be gone and that would mean a lot of work--I have several posts/stories out there. If they were no long longer accessible, they'd have to be taken down or reworded.

It turns out (near as I can tell) the sendtokindle feature from blogs still works just fine without the cloud being a part of it. But because Amazon has many features/functions, it was not all that easy to tell which were affected by this change.

It's a minor bump in the road and took me fifteen minutes to check various things to see how it would impact me. I'm still not entirely clear on whether I will be able to email a book to a reviewer, but from what Nate said on his blog, I think I'll still be able to mail books to reviewers whether they have prime or not. I'll find out when the time comes if there are any issues with it.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I tested this on secondary account which didn't have a Cloud Drive.

Ok...if the secondary account doesn't have a cloud drive, then why would you expect the document to go to the cloud drive? I don't understand that. Have you ever been able to send a doc to the cloud with that account before?

Shari

[Glorfindel]

He tested to see if it still sent to the device.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

He tested to see if it still sent to the device.

Correct.

There has been some confusion over whether the conversion service still works. I carefully laid out my action and result to help everyone figure out what was going on.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Prime users get 5GB free storage. Fire device owners get another 5GB of storage:
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...s-to-the-curb/

I have both Prime and two Fire devices (hubby and me share an account, one each) so does that mean we get 10GB?

TBH I can't understand the fuss about photos, we never save any photos to the cloud other than Dropbox via my own PC. We don't take photos with devices, we have cameras for photos and they don't automatically back up to cloud as they are DSLR's

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Not really "notice." That's a free trial that comes with "strings" because if you don't cancel, you're going to be charged.

My point was, though, that you have 3 months to decide what you want to do. Nothing's been taken away from anyone today.

It turns out (near as I can tell) the sendtokindle feature from blogs still works just fine without the cloud being a part of it. But because Amazon has many features/functions, it was not all that easy to tell which were affected by this change.

Yes, it'll work just as it did before the Cloud existed.

[Josieb1]

The whole point of sending non Amazon books to the Cloud (Amazon's servers) is Whispersync, which I use daily. Without that option a kindle is of no more use than a Kobo.

Its quite apt this coming this week as I am begining to realise Amazon is becoming quite insidious.
Yes I do mean insidious, its meaning is 'operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect'

I am the exact type of customer Amazon wants. I have a Kindle ereader and a Fire tablet, I have Prime, I have an Audible account and as long as everything works okay its hunky dorey, but the minute something goes wrong you realise how dependant you are on their infastructure and how uselss they really are.

I've spent weeks going back and forth with both companies over techincal issues with a Fire HD6 and a HDX7and neither company can solve the problems. Its been banging my head against a brick wall time.

Amazon is getting too big and too cocky now and long term I really don't think this is a good thing.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

The whole point of sending non Amazon books to the Cloud (Amazon's servers) is Whispersync, which I use daily. Without that option a kindle is of no more use than a Kobo.

That's one use for it, but certainly not the only one. You could use it as a backup system, or to have remote access to your documents on multiple devices, or to allow you to store more files than will fit on your Kindle. Cloud storage has lots of uses.

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

The whole point of sending non Amazon books to the Cloud (Amazon's servers) is Whispersync, which I use daily. Without that option a kindle is of no more use than a Kobo.

Its quite apt this coming this week as I am begining to realise Amazon is becoming quite insidious.
Yes I do mean insidious, its meaning is 'operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect'

I am the exact type of customer Amazon wants. I have a Kindle ereader and a Fire tablet, I have Prime, I have an Audible account and as long as everything works okay its hunky dorey, but the minute something goes wrong you realise how dependant you are on their infastructure and how uselss they really are.

I've spent weeks going back and forth with both companies and neither company can solve the problems. Its been banging my head against a brick wall time.

Amazon is getting too big and too cocky now and long term I really don't think this is a good thing.

It's generally not a good thing, but it's fairly common for a company to try to get you onboard and then...change prices and/or services. It's the same whether it's a cable company or directtv or any subscription service. It's one of the reasons I chose to shop at multiple places and try to reward the retailers who have the lowest price--maybe not always the most CONVENIENT download, but the best deal. I'm not saying anyone else has to do this, but I don't like being dependent on a particular service. Thus my fear that the "sendtokindle" which I use on my blog would disappear. There's nothing that says that convenience will stay around forever. As a blog owner I just have to be constantly aware of changes and try to keep my options open. So instead of making the stories "Send to kindle" only--it's one of the reasons that the stories are also uploaded to epub retailers and made free. No complete dependance. Given this news today, I may go back to the old way of doing freebies where I bundle them and let people just download the zip file with both formats. Or I may have to look at doing that in addition to the other routes.

No one said things would stay the same. I don't expect them to, but it can be hard to jump ahead!

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

Near as I can tell from the email I received this morning, there is no more free cloud (I use it to read samples).



I can still access what I already have up there (couple of books that were free that I decided not to read). I find it interesting they don't offer ANY space for free. Are there other cloud drives that still have some free space?

Dropbox still offers free storage - use the link in my sig and get a total of 2.5 gb free. I have 7.25 gb right now and if you have Dropbox there are more ways to get free storage than just referrals. I'll look for some ways and post more when I get home.