Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[HarryT]

If you were to summarise your argument in one or two concise paragraphs, you'd get a lot more readers. Not many people are going to have the patience to wade through your interminable posts.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by notimp

When the head moderators chose to move this topic, it was not because I had sufficiently bored them with an argument that was hardly ever touched by others on the factual level, but because they literally had a revolt going on where a few important devs within this community argued it wasn't an issue they should be concerned about, because it was a tad political and not something they could fix with two lines of code.

As per the guidelines, "discussions or questions about the actions of the Moderating Team are not permitted on open forum".

As HarryT said, you would help your cause by learning to be concise.

[notimp]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Now that you are in the correct forum,
My question shall change.
You keep saying ONLY AMAZON can produce a book using the kfx format.
That is probably true. But, does this mean that the author cannot sell it in another format on another site?

He can.

But Kindle users are disincentivized to buy a "more open format" instead (loophole set aside), because on their readers it lacks features out of the box. Better readability and convenience - vs. caring about important properties of eBooks down the road, is not a fair fight.

What I take offense with is not that there is no way around this, but that it is positioned in a way for people in general to not get what was "once promised" as the norm for eBooks.
And if Amazon never saw ebooks that way - then lets promote that fact.

You could argue, that this is used as a means for integrating customers tighter into the Kindles own ecosystem (exclusive-featuresTM), or that it is the beginning of planned obsolescence (it probably is not - Amazon would take better consumer retention over "pay again for the next version" at this point) -- but all I need to make my argument is to point at the stuff that was lost within the last year.

Look at whats still possible, but not probable - is not something the public should be fobbed of with.

Why do we always have to talk about the publisher and author that can still sell a version of his book to readers on a small lesser known online store (loopholes aside), which then will look worse on Kindles than if the reader would have bought it through Amazon - but that way archiveability or any other user rights necessary for using it with Calibre arent lost?

No - thats not an alternative - and even Amazon acknowledges as much. The ONLY way we can still pronounce this as "workable" is, with them holding open a loophole for the "informed class" of users. And the loophole is out of our hands and will be regulated in the future, by Amazon - as they see fit.

Thats what preps this whole mess up ("At the moment we can still use Calibre..."). Nothing else.

[pdurrant]

Your argument falls over because Amazon doesn't need a proprietary format to keep the vast majority of Kindle owners happily buying ebooks only from Amazon.

[notimp]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Your argument falls over because Amazon doesn't need a proprietary format to keep the vast majority of Kindle owners happily buying ebooks only from Amazon.

And I was fine with that. I really was.

Talk to people who know this account name and what it stood for in the past (in a certain german *hrm* forum and sadly not with enough engagement and hours put into this community here), I championed Amazon up until the point where along to the "habitual bond" (ease of use, convenience, ...) came the structural shift towards the fully proprietary format (developed as such, with obfuscation out of the box, containing 14 files in a folder instead of one .kf8, exclusive features, no authoring tools released...) that started being autodelivered onto peoples Kindles, without Amazon even giving out as much as a press release as to what had changed, and without any way to "easily opt out from it" for the normal user.

The boundary of where exactly the red line is can be shifted around as one needs it. This was mine.

Maintaining the loophole that still provides "older formats" is not in our hands, and having eBook production distributed is not in the interest of publishers anymore (at least partly).

Thats too much of a change to just let it fly by.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by notimp

Thats too much of a change to just let it fly by.

And I really can't get excited by the change to KFX. I don't see it as any kind of problem for publishers, authors or readers.

Could you, in two or three short paragraphs, summarise why you think it's a problem?

[shalym]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And I really can't get excited by the change to KFX. I don't see it as any kind of problem for publishers, authors or readers.

Could you, in two or three short paragraphs, summarise why you think it's a problem?

Note the emphasis on "short", please

Shari

(emphasis added by me, because I think it's needed.)

[Pajamaman]

A reader comment on a story on the digital reader seems to suggest that the new page flip feature is only available in KFX. Can anyone confirm that?

http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...r-in-an-ebook/

Checked my guess: as far as I can see, all books with Page Flip enabled are KFX-Format on my Kindle.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

A reader comment on a story on the digital reader seems to suggest that the new page flip feature is only available in KFX. Can anyone confirm that?

http://the-digital-reader.com/2016/0...r-in-an-ebook/

It is standard marketing practice to include extra features in a premium model vehicle / appliance / device / software. People who add such "unauthorized features" to the "lesser model" are called "hackers". The fact that kindle hackers have not taken enough interest in the .kfx format to spend significant free (unpaid) time on it does NOT make them slackers. It just means that their areas of personal interest differ from yours.

@notimp: If you offered sufficient bounty (payment for services), it is almost certain you could hire somebody to take up your cause and defeat .kfx protections. Do you take your position seriously enough to back it with payment rather than lip service?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

A reader comment on a story on the digital reader seems to suggest that the new page flip feature is only available in KFX. Can anyone confirm that?

I believe that is true. More here.

[Cinisajoy]

At Notimp,
Thank you for finally giving me a reasonably short answer.

Since you seem so interested in how Amazon is locking customers in, perhaps you are unaware that when you buy an ebook licence from Amazon you can put it on up to 6 devices. Sometimes more.

They have always pushed the format that will look best on the particular device.
It would be a customer service nightmare to offer your average customers a choice of formats since most are not tech savvy.


As an author I would want the distributor to send it out in the best possible format for the customer's device.

As a customer I want the seller to send me the book in the best format for reading on my device.

Note in this case the distributor and the seller are the same depending on which side of the fence you are on.

Amazon does not actually publish the ebooks (except for their imprint). They allow the authors/publishers to put their ebooks on the website for a fee.

Amazon then takes the customer's money and sends them the ebook they just bought in the format that it is the best for the customer's reading experience.

So as author or buyer, I just want the best format for my readers or particular device or devices

For those that don't want to read my long answer just the bolded part sums it up.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Your argument falls over because Amazon doesn't need a proprietary format to keep the vast majority of Kindle owners happily buying ebooks only from Amazon.

I used to buy a lot of books from small publishers like Dreamspinner Press and a small ebook retailer called Allromance but since the UK tax increase was implemented last year and now with the value of the pound against the dollar Amazon is the cheapest place to buy the ebooks I want. Proprietary format or not I just buy from the cheapest place. I know it's bad for the authors but I can't afford to pay £6/7 for a book compared to £3/4 on Amazon.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I used to buy a lot of books from small publishers like Dreamspinner Press and a small ebook retailer called Allromance but since the UK tax increase was implemented last year and now with the value of the pound against the dollar Amazon is the cheapest place to buy the ebooks I want. Proprietary format or not I just buy from the cheapest place. I know it's bad for the authors but I can't afford to pay £6/7 for a book compared to £3/4 on Amazon.

It's not necessarily bad for the authors. But its certainly not good news for the publishers.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

People who add such "unauthorized features" to the "lesser model" are called "hackers". The fact that kindle hackers have not taken enough interest in the .kfx format to spend significant free (unpaid) time on it does NOT make them slackers. It just means that their areas of personal interest differ from yours.

Sorry. I don't know what you're talking about.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Sorry. I don't know what you're talking about.

I am talking about the general gist of this thread (pleas and pokes aimed at kindle developers by notimp), and why this thread was moved out of the Kindle Developers Corner to here, as related to your post. You may understand my post in the greater context of this thread by reading the entire thread. I replied to your post merely as an example of .kfx-specific features.

I even addressed part of my reply directly to notimp, so you would not be (as) confused.