Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[notimp]

@pdurrant:

I accept it was me. I actually caught it while I was going over the post again, but I decided to go with it, because the sentence had a we in it. Also, the paragraph wasn't meant to stir things up, but to refocus that this is not just the word "magical" thrown out randomly.


As far as the rollout of .kfx - I think that there is no debate to be had, that .kfx currently is Amazons main file format in the ebook space and has been for quite a while. (Continuation of the naming scheme, switch in auto delivery, switching from features to be bundled with firmwares to be bundled with this new format...)

Windows Desktop just isn't important to them as a platform - nor is it to anybody at this point. They'd rather see you managing your collections in the cloud using a mobile device or a browser interface.

From where I am standing, the decision not to renew the Windows reading apps was made precisely to not loose control over the format. They are doing just fine, driving a closed plattform strategy (their Kindles, their Render engines, their formats - touch any of it, and they'll reiterate their obfuscation layer faster than you can look).

You could argue, that they are actually quite liberal on the Desktop App side, letting the old format (we can still understand) be auto delivered to you, but thats not where this argument is won.

They see the PC as a creation platform, so they are not delivering any tools for you to create books with it - this time around (because creating current Kindle books is now something Amazon wants to own as an exclusive ("Exclusive features." Also, lock in of content.).

They see the Kindle as their main consumption device (the one content gets delivered to), so they closed it down tighter than ever before, to gain "exclusive features" as marketing talking points.

You can't just propose that there is no problem with .kfx, because they don't offer a delivery channel for it to your PC. It still exists as their main file format at this point in time.

[jhowell]

The main reason that KFX has not been already cracked is that it would not be useful to do so currently. KF8 retains much of the original EPUB/HTML source that was used to create the book. KFX is much more highly processed and a lot of details of the original HTML coding are lost in the process. Thus KFX is inferior to KF8 for the purposes of archival or conversion. As long as they continue to make KF8 easily available there is no incentive do anything with Amazon-delivered KFX files.

There is in fact a dis-incentive to releasing "tools" that support KFX before they are really needed because that would just push Amazon to make changes to block this access sooner than might otherwise be the case.

---

The other arguments about Amazon taking away the means of production for book publishers make no sense to me. Publishers still provide e-books to sellers, such as Amazon, in the same formats that they did before. The existence of KFX doesn't change this at all.

Anyone selling books for use on Kindles that does not go through Amazon has a number of disadvantages including lack of DRM, having them segregated as "personal documents", and the need for the user to manually email or sideload files. Sure, not being able to make use of enhanced typesetting is an additional problem, but there are already enough barriers to this type of sale that it doesn't matter very much in the end.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by notimp

From where I am standing, the decision not to renew the Windows reading apps was made precisely to not loose control over the format.

Where do you get this idea from? I would be very surprised if they didn't eventually updated Kindle for Mac/PC to use KFX. Kindle for Mac/PC is certainly still under active development.

[notimp]

@jhowell: If this really is the case - I'll take your word for it.

Just please - make sure you dont loose sight of the changes that already happened. The Amazon sanctioned loophole is just that. Its a loophole. And its a loophole by design.

It never will become more, and it becomes a liability - if .kfx doesn't get reversed and Kindles are filling up with those things.

The hacking community already "slipped" a generation at this point - your argument for not pressing for a reversed current file format is that it seems more sustainable, the opposing side to that is, that the idea behind calibre becomes less attractive to many people.

Now to the more in depth stuff. kfx becoming less "humanly approachable" for lets say authors and publishers, is actually a high priority issue as well. You also encounter it in the image delivery subsystem they use for the format - where the "master copy" sits on their servers, and they are delivering downsampled versions, depending on the dpi of your device. If your product needlessly consists of 15 files in two folders...

So at this point, they have managed to do the following things:

They've decoupled themselves from the standard forming bodies, that conceptualized ebook formats as rough equivalents to hypertext. Easy to understand, easy to produce, standardized, open.

They've positioned themselves so they alone would be able to create what I conceptualize as the master copy of any book (the one with all the "features"), whilst authors and publishers would end their workflow in a preliminary format, which Amazon then churns into the final thing. Covers are still loaded from their servers according to a unique identifier, right?

They've decoupled "new features" from firmware releases and made them a value add for a certain format - without any technical need for that, at least currently.

They've stopped releasing PC software that can handle the format until months after the a new format release, which now happens on the same day the press release gets pushed out - via autodelivery - effectively being able to decide when hackers can start trying to reverse the format.

They have transitioned to this new mode of commerce and distribution without bloggers even mentioning it once, or journalists becoming aware of it. Without users agreeing that in many cases they now get delivered a product which "isn't fit for archival purposes anymore", without an opt out to auto delivery.

The loophole they left open requires them actively providing it via their online platform, and users to sideload books they bought via a PC using a USB cable - *checkin' my calender* yep - still 2016.

They have convinced at least one person in here, that they do all of this, because they save processing cycles. (On a 300kb base file in, again, 2016) The advantages of having a format where interoperability, editing, and so forth become issues again - but that is highly optimized for certain processing tasks, seem to lay sever side as well, right? Faster analytics, faster real time metrics, lowering device production costs - while (f.e.) having additional processing active in the background, delivering the actual book in 15 separate files, that might differ from device to device, ...

.kfx certainly hasn't improved page turn speeds - because of faster rendering times on the device. (Nor would that still be needed...)

Being an advocate for the old formats would make sense if the ecosystem wasn't changing - because of the shifts kfx has introduced already, can and should they be ignored?

Amazons strategy of pushing core consumer interests to the fringe and supplementing them with "customer still feels its easy" - from my standpoint has been pushed as far as any informed observer should be willing to accept.

"We'll give them a one file generation headstart in not touching their main file format" is pretty much unheard of from the public interest point of view. In any other sector.

I understand the reasoning behind it - I just might not agree with it in the broader sense. But it is what it is - and consumers now have a chance to feel what it is like to get books delivered to their readers in a file format, that you can still look at (if your access privileges check out) and then throw away (delete), but that isn't fit for much else. :/

[notimp]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Where do you get this idea from? I would be very surprised if they didn't eventually updated Kindle for Mac/PC to use KFX. Kindle for Mac/PC is certainly still under active development.

Timing. It is now 10 months after .kfx went live.

Also If they do - expect pushback from people that still use K4PC to get access to books in old formats. Or even to remove DRM.

And if thats the case, would Amazon allow you to override their defaults?

If not, how would this community react? (Onother push towards reversing kfx?) If they do - how would they communicate that to publishers and authors?

The situation they have maneuvered themselves into actually isn't that fun to address going forward.

But to be fair - this is mostly speculative, while looking at the effects of .kfx is not, because - even if you choose to not use it at all, its already out there for quite some time.

[Cinisajoy]

I have no problem with you saying the reader is stuck with one format on their device.
I have a problem with you saying that publishers can only use that format.
If I want to publish a book, I can put it in any format I choose. I can sell it pretty much any where I choose. Now if I go with Amazon, I will upload either a doc or an epub. Amazon will then convert it to whichever of their formats that fits the customer's device.
That does not hurt my book in the least. The words get to a customer in a form the customer can read.

ONLY if I physically choose to go exclusive with Amazon, then Amazon does have the right to tell me I can't sell the ebook elsewhere. Note, I could still print it and sell it wherever I choose.

So now how does kfx affect publishers?

Oh and on your not shopping at Amazon is not a solution, I know more people that don't shop at Amazon than do shop at Amazon.

You are reminding me of the people that say Walmart is bad for the economy because one or two stores went out of business.
Poor area: Walmart builds a store. Employees roughly 300 people, Sonic, McDonald's and Stripes opens on the same lot. More people employeed. Then in comes Dollar Tree, Cato, Starbucks and a couple of other businesses across the street. Then more businesses come in. And a couple of restaurants.
The area went from less than 10% having jobs to 70% having jobs. Now I don't know about you but I would much rather feed 10 people than 700.

[Cinisajoy]

IIRC: They updated K4pc in the last few months.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I would be very surprised if they didn't eventually updated Kindle for Mac/PC to use KFX. Kindle for Mac/PC is certainly still under active development.

I am curious why Amazon hasn't already updated Kindle for PC/Mac and the Download & transfer via USB function for Kindles to use KFX.

I doubt that it has anything to do with delaying the reverse engineering of the format. Reverse engineering is already possible using the Android, iOS and Kindle (Linux) implementations. And there is already a KFX renderer ported to PC/Mac as part of Kindle Previewer 3.

I also doubt that they are continuing to make KF8 available in support of users of the "tools" and calibre.

My best guess is that closing these loopholes is a low priority for them, but they will get around to it eventually in order to make book rendering more consistent across platforms and download methods.

At that point the use an older Kindle device (or a newer device with outdated firmware) will still make it possible to receive KF8/MOBI files for some people. I doubt that they will obsolete those devices (or force a required firmware update) any time soon.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I am curious why Amazon hasn't already updated Kindle for PC/Mac and the Download & transfer via USB function for Kindles to use KFX.

I doubt that it has anything to do with delaying the reverse engineering of the format. Reverse engineering is already possible using the Android, iOS and Kindle (Linux) implementations. And there is already a KFX renderer ported to PC/Mac as part of Kindle Previewer 3.

I also doubt that they are continuing to make KF8 available in support of users of the "tools" and calibre.

My best guess is that closing these loopholes is a low priority for them, but they will get around to it eventually in order to make book rendering more consistent across platforms and download methods.

At that point the use an older Kindle device (or a newer device with outdated firmware) will still make it possible to receive KF8/MOBI files for some people. I doubt that they will obsolete those devices (or force a required firmware update) any time soon.

March 22, 2016. That was the date to make sure all your older kindles were updated.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Now if I go with Amazon, I will upload either a doc or an epub. Amazon will then convert it to whichever of their formats that fits the customer's device. That does not hurt my book in the least.

This thread (rather long but still relevant) seems to imply otherwise.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

March 22, 2016. That was the date to make sure all your older kindles were updated.

That was entirely a question of updating security certificates, not preparing for file format changes.

[notimp]

One sentence reply - yes, publishers could choose not to publish in the new format (.kfx) - but for the price of worse readability to their general customers.

Hyphenation actually does matter quite a bit (especially in languages that sport a higher average length of words.. ).

(Ok, more than one sentence already... *dang* )

That publishers arent reacting at all to this shift, to me is probably the most astounding thing of all. Those meetings must have been challenging..

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by notimp

One sentence reply - yes, publishers could choose not to publish in the new format (.kfx) - but for the price of worse readability to their general customers.

Publishers supply Amazon with ePubs or AZW3, and Amazon converts to KFX. No publishers are choosing or not to use KFX - they don't get a choice.

[induna]

OK, the hyperbolic rhetoric has worn me down once again. I think that notimp's entire argument is simply irrelevant, and surely not worth the heap of words he has expended on it for two simple reasons:

1. It is by far more simple for anyone to create and disseminate books now than it ever has been, and the technology is such that that will remain the case for the foreseeable future, even if the creation and dissemination must occur through non-mainstream channels, which is probably unlikely in the medium term. The long term is beyond my reckoning.

2. Given the fact that electronic books are, um electronic, or actually digital, we will always be able to copy them and share them if there is any serious attempt to restrict the free flow of information, even if this means photographing every page, OCRing them, and saving them in an open format -- a process that can be highly automated and will certainly be much faster than the Xerox machine of old.

There is no danger of knowledge disappearing if we care to maintain it, quite the opposite. From my perspective an actual assault on the availability of the (digitally) printed word is the only thing that would justify notimp's verbosity, and there is no such assault.

[knc1]

The forum software changes a thread title on the index page to bold when there is a new (un-read by the viewer) post.

I wonder if we could get that changed to only bold this thread when notimp has something new to say, regardless of the 'read' status.