Amazon's vertical integration/monopoly

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

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

Mr. Notimp implied several times starting at around page 24 that the developers were being lazy and assorted other things because they did not want to discuss kfx.
And then in the last couple of pages Mr. Notimp accused the mods and developers of trying to kill his thread because it was moved out here to the discussion area.

Geekmaster was just reaffirming that the developers are not interested in messing with kfx.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

[...] Geekmaster was just reaffirming that the developers are not interested in messing with kfx.

Though I also mentioned that hacking kfx (or adding kfx-specific features to other document formats) could be encouraged by offering a bounty (or other form of payment), to encourage developers to put their personal projects on hold and take an interest in your desired kfx-related projects. And by "your" I mean notimp and others who want such things.

A wall of politically-motivated text (and thread hijacking, as this thread began) are not effective ways of attracting positive action toward a desired goal, especially when trying to use technogeeks as your tool.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Though I also mentioned that hacking kfx (or adding kfx-specific features to other document formats) could be encouraged by offering a bounty (or other form of payment), to encourage developers to put their personal projects on hold and take an interest in your desired kfx-related projects. And by "your" I mean notimp and others who want such things.

A wall of politically-motivated text (and thread hijacking, as this thread began) are not effective ways of attracting positive action toward a desired goal, especially when trying to use technogeeks as your tool.

Completely agreeing with this.

[notimp]

Now that all illusions concerning Amazons new file format and the attempt to get it fully opened (to the extent where we get fully readable documents out of the container, and we can create fully standard compliant files without resorting to an Amazon binary that we still don't understand the behavior of entirely) - are sufficiently shattered -

I can ultimately say, that the title of this topic was wrongly chosen - and served more to hide Amazons intention in the bait and switch behind its most current ebook format (.kfx) between images of company structure that haven't had much to do with the issue at hand.

It never was a company structure issue.

I thought about, why this thread was like sunlight to a cave dweller for the mobileread Kindle dev community, as in that after some time they wouldn't even wan't to see it coming up again, they wouldn't want to discuss it, and they certainly wouldn't admit any responsibility for their non action - or in prolonging the image of a status quo that had changed already.

I always had a drive to look for acknowledgement or even a possible solution in the developer community, because to me they were responsible for maintaining the power structure, that came within the UI and usage experience of a Kindle eReader.

When they dismissed any responsibility and kicked the thread out of the developer forum, the issue was "defeated" in as far as it could be considered bad PR for anyone who touched it.

I especially was insistent, that normal users shouldnt be the ones that should have to champion the issue, because it still is complex, technical and something far too easily shoved into the "individual responsibility" corner - to ever become a possible popular talking point within Amazons broader customer base.

I even remember getting distinctly angry - when the developers of this community argued, that all that had to be provided was ONE OUT - regardless of how unpractical or unlikely it would be that people would use it over time - especially, when on the other side of the equation, the automatic wireless rollout of the new format had already begun.

Now I have a tool to show the dev community in this forum, why they were wrong - and that not caring about how defaults change should be seen as a form of neglect.

Again. Those are harsh words. But again, I am not trying to win over popular opinion as much as making the case, for why ignoring the structural implications of Amazons new file format - and not warning people what it changed in their daily routines, was very much a form of severe neglect.

The argument should have come out of the development community, but the the larger part of the blame goes to bloggers, the tech media, and the book scene, for not having written or talked about what had changed, with the introduction of the first eBook format that all of a sudden turned out "not fit for archival purposes".

I stumbled uppon http://darkpatterns.org/ today, a website set up by coders and design professionals that saw that they were creating UI experiences that would trick users to follow certain behavior patterns that were harmfull to them, and unethical in their implementation.

I argue that this is what happened here. You can forget the entire vertical integration and "Amazon becoming too powerful" side of the argument - just looking into how it was established, that people now get their books autodelivered at scale in a format that not one of us can do anything substantial with (we don't understand the blob), makes the case.

The pattern for this was designed to accomplish a certain behavior shift. The intended behavior shift was unethical (Amazon .kfx books aren't books anymore, and took away entire featuresets that have been considered to be part of the DNA markup of books in the past 500 years, also of music (mp3), video (x264) and text (html) in the internet age) by design. By far the most substential issue in getting this tackled is, that tech media and the bloggersphere failed to even report on the file format changes that happened.

And the only people equipped with the mindset to be able to raise the issue, or find ways around it, are technical minded, most likely with a developer background.

That "but if you log into Amazons web interface, they still allow you to download an older format we can still understand - for the time being" even was used as a proper excuse, shows a failure of seeing the importance behind UI design patterns, and that you can specifically design workflows, that will make absolutely sure, hardly anyone will ever use them.

Which brings me back to the responsibility part. The independent dev scene around this product should have been the first one that rang the alarm bell. But they didn't think about design patterns. They thought about technicalities.

Thus no one from our side ever arrived at the battle. And the consumer lost.

For the coming years, make it your responsibility to learn how the (UI) design thats implemented in a software product changes behaviors and outcomes. Make it your responsibility to know, why defaults matter and why you talk about file formats, when they are changed.

As technically minded people, as developers - you now have your jumping off point to learn those things with the darkpatterns.org website. The people behind it saw their work being misused for a different purpose than they intended or they had been able to rationalize away.

When you are suggesting, that you should have the ability to define what an electronic book should be for millions of people to come - you better make sure, to also check if your implementation is ethical. Amazon didn't with .kfx. Now we have this issue - which only gets larger over time (as more and more people get delivered their "books" in the new format via the Kindles on board auto delivery ecosystem).

[Cinisajoy]

Actually read that entire long post.
Once again, kfx is NOT the only e-book format. It is specifically an Amazon format.
Amazon is NOT the only book seller.
I would bet good money if people couldn't read their e-books (files) on the device of their choosing, they would go somewhere else to buy the files.


As to why you only want to involve a very few people to make changes (although I am still wondering what you thought they could do) rather than the people that actually use the product is beyond me. Especially when those people work with mostly hard and software. Not files.

You wanted a discussion and the place for discussion was not in the developer's forum.

Now, I am sure if you had been a bit less long-winded and more specific in what you wanted help with, they might have been more interested. (Well if they hadn't been so busy with that new jailbreak. )
Also why you got stuck with me, I was trying to separate the rant from what you actually wanted.

While you may not have intended it to come across as a rant, it did.

Anyway welcome back.

[notimp]

Thanks for the accolades.. This was always has been a good community to be a part of.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by notimp

(Amazon .kfx books aren't books anymore, and took away entire featuresets that have been considered to be part of the DNA markup of books in the past 500 years, also of music (mp3), video (x264) and text (html) in the internet age)

So I've been trying to figure out what about KFX books makes them less 'books' than, say, MOBI or AZW3 files. I can't figure anything out. So it uses a lower-level renderer than HTML, but that's still higher-level than 'droplets of ink on a page'. It doesn't lose you any facilities wrt paper books other than ones you've already lost with DRMed AZW3/MOBI (e.g. inheritance without corporate involvement). You can't easily copy it or back it up, but, uh, that's hard with paper books too. And it supports better rendering than AZW3, finally bringing back hyphenation without the author needing to do anything special, and with other features like kerning that have been part of the DNA of paper books for, uh, the last umpty-hundred years.

So... what 'entire featuresets' are these? The principal featureset of a book is that you can read it and carry it around with you, and (if you are a philistine without honour or respect for books!) scribble in it or highlight it. I don't think Amazon has taken that away. It'll even use the font of the publisher's choice, though I suppose the ability to force the reader to use that font and only that font has been taken away (unless the book is badly formatted). I don't weep for that loss.

I suppose you can't bend the cover back until the spine snaps. That's a definite loss. But, y'know, I tried to do that with my AZW3 book and I can't do it with that either. You can't print in colour or produce coffee-table books either, and if you spill hot coffee on it you soon find yourself out more than a mere single book. So yeah, that featureset is missing. So is the 'uses up lots of space' and 'smells nice' featureset...

I would far prefer it if we could make our own KFXes and de-DRM them (among other things, making our own KFXes would make publishing workflows a lot easier because Amazon's KDP upload interface is damn clunky and slow compared to doing it directly on the device), but, y'know, none of these things are worse than print books, at all. Doing a print book test run is *much* harder!

[jhowell]

The vast majority of e-book consumers have no interest in file formats or DRM. They just want to buy books and read them. Amazon makes it easy to do this. E-books sold by Amazon are meant to be read using Kindle devices and apps. It is the responsibility of book purchasers to be aware of this limitation.

The KFX format was designed to be rendered efficiently on kindle apps and devices. That it is not as useful as KF8 for conversion and archival is not Amazon's problem.

Nothing has changed in the months since this thread was last active. The small minority who wish to do so can still download and remove DRM from almost all e-books purchased at Amazon. Amazon hasn't taken any steps to close the existing loopholes, despite the desire of some publishers to prevent such actions by having their books sold with DRM.

If and when Amazon prevents the removal of DRM from books downloaded from their website or using Kindle for PC/Mac that will be the time to become concerned and possibly take action, not before.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by notimp

Now that all illusions concerning Amazons new file format and the attempt to get it fully opened (to the extent where we get fully readable documents out of the container, and we can create fully standard compliant files without resorting to an Amazon binary that we still don't understand the behavior of entirely) - are sufficiently shattered -

I can ultimately say, that the title of this topic was wrongly chosen - and served more to hide Amazons intention in the bait and switch behind its most current ebook format (.kfx) between images of company structure that haven't had much to do with the issue at hand.

It never was a company structure issue.

I thought about, why this thread was like sunlight to a cave dweller for the mobileread Kindle dev community, as in that after some time they wouldn't even wan't to see it coming up again, they wouldn't want to discuss it, and they certainly wouldn't admit any responsibility for their non action - or in prolonging the image of a status quo that had changed already.

I always had a drive to look for acknowledgement or even a possible solution in the developer community, because to me they were responsible for maintaining the power structure, that came within the UI and usage experience of a Kindle eReader.

When they dismissed any responsibility and kicked the thread out of the developer forum, the issue was "defeated" in as far as it could be considered bad PR for anyone who touched it.

I especially was insistent, that normal users shouldnt be the ones that should have to champion the issue, because it still is complex, technical and something far too easily shoved into the "individual responsibility" corner - to ever become a possible popular talking point within Amazons broader customer base.

I even remember getting distinctly angry - when the developers of this community argued, that all that had to be provided was ONE OUT - regardless of how unpractical or unlikely it would be that people would use it over time - especially, when on the other side of the equation, the automatic wireless rollout of the new format had already begun.

Now I have a tool to show the dev community in this forum, why they were wrong - and that not caring about how defaults change should be seen as a form of neglect.

Again. Those are harsh words. But again, I am not trying to win over popular opinion as much as making the case, for why ignoring the structural implications of Amazons new file format - and not warning people what it changed in their daily routines, was very much a form of severe neglect.

The argument should have come out of the development community, but the the larger part of the blame goes to bloggers, the tech media, and the book scene, for not having written or talked about what had changed, with the introduction of the first eBook format that all of a sudden turned out "not fit for archival purposes".

I stumbled uppon http://darkpatterns.org/ today, a website set up by coders and design professionals that saw that they were creating UI experiences that would trick users to follow certain behavior patterns that were harmfull to them, and unethical in their implementation.

I argue that this is what happened here. You can forget the entire vertical integration and "Amazon becoming too powerful" side of the argument - just looking into how it was established, that people now get their books autodelivered at scale in a format that not one of us can do anything substantial with (we don't understand the blob), makes the case.

The pattern for this was designed to accomplish a certain behavior shift. The intended behavior shift was unethical (Amazon .kfx books aren't books anymore, and took away entire featuresets that have been considered to be part of the DNA markup of books in the past 500 years, also of music (mp3), video (x264) and text (html) in the internet age) by design. By far the most substential issue in getting this tackled is, that tech media and the bloggersphere failed to even report on the file format changes that happened.

And the only people equipped with the mindset to be able to raise the issue, or find ways around it, are technical minded, most likely with a developer background.

That "but if you log into Amazons web interface, they still allow you to download an older format we can still understand - for the time being" even was used as a proper excuse, shows a failure of seeing the importance behind UI design patterns, and that you can specifically design workflows, that will make absolutely sure, hardly anyone will ever use them.

Which brings me back to the responsibility part. The independent dev scene around this product should have been the first one that rang the alarm bell. But they didn't think about design patterns. They thought about technicalities.

Thus no one from our side ever arrived at the battle. And the consumer lost.

For the coming years, make it your responsibility to learn how the (UI) design thats implemented in a software product changes behaviors and outcomes. Make it your responsibility to know, why defaults matter and why you talk about file formats, when they are changed.

As technically minded people, as developers - you now have your jumping off point to learn those things with the darkpatterns.org website. The people behind it saw their work being misused for a different purpose than they intended or they had been able to rationalize away.

When you are suggesting, that you should have the ability to define what an electronic book should be for millions of people to come - you better make sure, to also check if your implementation is ethical. Amazon didn't with .kfx. Now we have this issue - which only gets larger over time (as more and more people get delivered their "books" in the new format via the Kindles on board auto delivery ecosystem).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ejga4kJUts

[induna]

Originally Posted by notimp

I thought about, why this thread was like sunlight to a cave dweller for the mobileread Kindle dev community...

Well, Notimp, it is reassuring to see that your high opinion of your own ideas, and your fundamental contempt for those who don't share it, has remained unchanged. Way to go!

[notimp]

Is it just me, or do all discussions about anything substantial - always get highjacked by the lunchbreak crowd - that tries to judge efforts and insights by the -

"Have you heard what Heather did, that b***h"

metric of proper debating - internet style

(Cambridge Analytica says - don't waste your time, convincing people on political positions - just print out that cheat sheet we give you, and tell them, that your political candidate likes dogs. Very much. Also refer to their dog by name. Its on the cheat sheet.)

Its the facebook equivalent of "posting is easier than reading" - where the tldr: gets fired long before you are through with the headline - and every attempted discussion about a topic becomes this long meandering process - where the side wins in the end that came up with the easiest hook, that gets everyone going on an emotional level, then everyone calls each other names - and everyone is so pleased, that they found something to talk about, on their way back after the lunch break. (#gossip (share, like and subscribe, ...))

Thats the entire output of most internet platforms these days. The "what brand of coffee do you drink, and what product are you a fan of" threads are the only topics of interest that can still exist. Your opinion counts.

And they will be the hot topic tomorrow, and the day after, and the day...

On Facebook, you never stop scrolling -
-

Yes, a part of the initial posting was there to confront people that the reality still hasnt changed. Yes I did it with the usual glee of someone that holds a viewpoint that can be defeated, but in the end still turns out to be the relevant one.

But it wasn't my main drive. I really thought about the issue - how it was filleted by people up to the point where everyone had an opinion, why this wasn't his or her problem, and why it would be good to - ignore the structural change that happened. While no blogger cared to even write about it. (But that other time, when Jeff Bezos tweeted, that they would be soon ready to announce a new product - boy - 200 google news entries within the first few minutes.)
-

So here is a suggestion - the next time you see a long text, and feel the need to comment - dont. Take your time. Drink some coffee. Why not talk to a friend instead?

I'm sure there are some great remarks you could make about not having read the whole thing. Or how you remember what Heather did, about six months ago, and how you can still remember. Or how you felt you had won an argument that day you called her by a derogatory name, and someone else liked it on Facebook...

How about not flaming a thread to death, or sidetracking it to the point where it is unable to continue an actual discussion.
-

On topic- I'm sure someone will get really angry - if I start repeating the core of the argument here again.

"Just because one is a format, and the other one is a format, and stuff with ink on it is a format - makes them all the same - where am I wrong?"

Is not a question I'm willing to answer at this point in the debate - the differences are already outlined - look them up if you like -

kfx is

- Scrambled by design, which makes it "unfit for archival purposes" not my words, the words of the guy that tried to to reverse engineer the container, for several months. edit: The moderation team here insists on me adding a notification in here that the mentioned "guy that tried to fully reverse engineer the format" only wrote, that .kfx is worse than .kf8 (.azw3), when it comes to its archiveability. He never mentioned the word "unfit".

- Can not be created or distributed, without engaging in a contractual relationship with the company - because, thats what books always have been. Right? Wrong.

- The public isn't allowed to understand any part of the container - and we still don't, to this day - we can look at how the "lttle black box works", but thats really it. Suggesting, that .kfx files would be .html, is some real twisted "Schroedingers cat" logic at play - so if something might be there, but we arent allowed to see, read or touch it - if Amazon can patent it, and with it change the entire nature of what a "book" is supposed to be - is it still html?

- Currently the format that gets autodeivivered to customers that are presumably buying books - hint, they arent. (They are buying licenses at the most, and .kfx is the license fulfillment "agent", - nothing more. I it has none of the properties of a book.)

- The only way out for customers is to sign into an Amazon web portal and request a defunct legacy version of a "Book", that the public is still allowed to unterstand. For the time being, because all of this runs on a "neat to have basis" - or as some of the old guards would qualify it - thats ground you can build foundations on. Oh, wait - not, thats only the last makeshift - roundabout loophole, the company has designated for "people with cultural needs" (you know like lending a book to a friend, giving it to your son, .. stuff that no one needs in a closed ecosystem...).

- The only way for authors to get books to their readers in a way that makes it "super easy" for them to benefit from stuff like built in hyphenation or ligatures - now is to suggest to them that they buy the "non book"; because only the non book comes with "features" (TM) - queue another forum voice raising their hand and asking - "But features, are good, right - and why shouldnt Amazon be allowed to develop "something" that sells better?" (If it has USPs and features, and has been patented, It might be a great product - it just might not be a book...)

So after all of this - we are at a point, where we don't ask ourselves - "what the frack has happened here" - we still ask ourselves the question - "But Bob, why should I change my buying habits, look - its still so easy!".

And the answer to that question is, that consumer behavior patterns in ecosystems are usually designed - and you loosing file format properties, before theres even talk about a DRM layer (dont worry - .kfx supports additional DRM. if you'd like that - which means, that there will be further account restrictions - so glad you asked..) is not something that just happens by chance.

I came across a newly formed website by some product design people, that also saw this as one of the current issues of our time. And there are some inspiring storys behind their motivation to make the issue more visible as well.

So leave yourself a few minutes in your watercooler conversation tomorrow, to make a few hilarious remarks about them as well - just so you can feel better for a few hours afterwards.

If it is not abundantly clear by now - this is not the thread for you to get your daily emotional gratification from. Honestly, not even for me. This is where we talk about an issue, because that issue exists, and it isn't going away.

Do I think a few casual opinions ("I bought a book today, and it was totally fine! - I even bought, a 80 USD Kindle - because it was best value!) have been what this this thread needed? A nice little shit storm to "get Amazon to notice"?

No. Sadly not. Making developers and technophiles think about behavioral design patterns, and that you can set up a web services just so no one uses it, or who controls it and why, matters - thats at least trying to make some steps forward to tackle the issue.

Also - I hope that there was some entertainment in this for you as well.

[DiapDealer]

Still too long for browser-reading.

[notimp]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Still too long for browser-reading.

Made me laugh.

[Cinisajoy]

Once again... read the very long post.

Had my morning coffee.

Talked to a friend.

Had a nice 6 cheese cheeseburger with French fries for lunch.

KFX is still not the only file format. It is just the best file for certain ereaders.
It will never be the only format.
If you don't like what Jeff is doing, don't give Jeff any money or any kind of promotion. (Good or bad.)

Many people would think oh cool, a format that works great for my device. Thanks for the information notimp.

I am assuming people that want a different file, know how to do that.
Point is most consumers don't giving a rat's patootie about the file format. They want the file instantly readable on their chosen device.

Tell me in under 100 words, what exactly do you want people to do about this?
What can we do about this format?
Give me a clear and concise short answer and you will get a response and from more than just me.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by notimp

kfx is - Scrambled by design, which makes it "unfit for archival purposes" not my words, the words of the guy that tried to to reverse engineer the container, for several months.

Can you provide a reference to this statement?

I have written something quite different. Here is a quote:

Originally Posted by 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.