Will K2PC 1.19 and KFX alter your ebook purchasing habits?

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't think adding enhanced features to the KF8 renderer would have slowed it down such that people would complain. I think they would welcome having most eBooks from Amazon support the enhanced typesetting.

Astonishingly, I agree with you. We have an existence proof: ixtab's hyphenation for mobis. That did all the work on the Kindle itself, and its performance and power impact (on a K4!) was so marginal that it was lost in the noise.

(What may have been impossible is things like enhanced page flip, which requires the ability to render nine pages at once, very fast. But, y'know... enhanced page flip is nearly useless because it's too small to read. I cannot imagine what Amazon were thinking when they implemented it, other than perhaps this would look cool in marketing demos.)

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

May be way low. May be way high. That's what happens when you pull numbers out of thin air

(Not that I disagree with the direction of your post. You're just better off not making up numbers to support opinions.)

I didn't make up the numbers. I did my research. So kindly quit telling I am making stuff up.

Look thing is I may be off by 1 or 2 percent, but it isn't more than that.
And truth be told, I was a bit off on how many kindles are jailbroke. It is closer to 300,000 than my original 600,000.
So that is way less than the 1.2% I had estimated.

I do lie, I don't make up stuff. I do my research. I actually talked to the guy that hosts the jailbreak files.

Here is the other thing, not naming names but there are a few in this thread that are saying things about kindles when they don't own a kindle and wouldn't own a kindle. They do not know what a kindle is capable of.

There is NO walled garden. Never has been. I know people and I am one of those people that does get books from other places and put them on my kindle.
So what if I have to grab a compatible format. Any author worth his salt that isn't exclusive to Amazon will have their books available in several formats.
It is not that hard.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I hate to be cynical but isn't that what Amazon always does.

Regardless of how "good" anyone finds there customer service Amazon is just a large corporation who want to make money. They don't give a damm about anyone except the bottom line.

Welcome to the real world. That is what businesses do. They are not philanthropists nor charitable foundations. The difference between Amazon and many other Corporations is that Amazon does give a damn about its customers. It gives a damn because it realises that the key to making money and improving that bottom line is to keep its customers happy. It therefore strives to give great customer support and a great reading experience. Not out of altruism. It's just good business.

But, at the same time, it realises that it can't keep everyone happy. If enough people cared about lock-in and drm and various other things that smail groups of customers care about, Amazon would act accordingly. And how many is enough? Enough to negatively and materially impact the bottom line and/or its reputation.

We live in the real world. Get used to it.

[jackie_w]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

And truth be told, I was a bit off on how many kindles are jailbroke. It is closer to 300,000 than my original 600,000.
So that is way less than the 1.2% I had estimated.

I must be missing something. How is the number of jailbroken Kindles linked to how many current ebook-buyers will be inconvenienced (or not) by the move towards KFX format?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by jackie_w

I must be missing something. How is the number of jailbroken Kindles linked to how many current ebook-buyers will be inconvenienced (or not) by the move towards KFX format?

I figure there might be twice the jailbreakers that will take the time to DRM.
Note: even if 1,000,000 people sanitize their books, that is still only 5% of Kindle owners.
So not even a drop in the bucket.
Oh and that also corresponds with the percentage of voracious readers.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by darryl

Welcome to the real world. That is what businesses do. They are not philanthropists nor charitable foundations. The difference between Amazon and many other Corporations is that Amazon does give a damn about its customers. It gives a damn because it realises that the key to making money and improving that bottom line is to keep its customers happy. It therefore strives to give great customer support and a great reading experience. Not out of altruism. It's just good business.

But, at the same time, it realises that it can't keep everyone happy. If enough people cared about lock-in and drm and various other things that smail groups of customers care about, Amazon would act accordingly. And how many is enough? Enough to negatively and materially impact the bottom line and/or its reputation.

We live in the real world. Get used to it.

Please don't preach to me. I understand the real world, and Amazon all to well. I was making an observation to the previous post by JS Wolf.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Please don't preach to me. I understand the real world, and Amazon all to well. I was making an observation to the previous post by JS Wolf.

Sorry if I was a bit harsh Josie. I took it as meaning Amazon is worse than any other business, which is something I do get a little sick of.

[rashkae]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You still don't get it. You would not need to add any code to KF8. These features would be handled in the program used to render KF8. ADE does it without ever needing to change the ePub. Amazon could have done the same with KF8 via the renderer. There would be no backwards compatibility issues.

Wellllll.... If Kindle performance had been crippled as badly as ADE on Kobo, as far as rendering, page turning, text selection etc... there would have been a riot.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I figure there might be twice the jailbreakers that will take the time to DRM.
Note: even if 1,000,000 people sanitize their books, that is still only 5% of Kindle owners.
So not even a drop in the bucket.
Oh and that also corresponds with the percentage of voracious readers.

Hi Cinisajoy.

Oh sorry, I thought you were (hand) waving at me.

[lkmiller]

I can't see Amazon being terribly concerned with lock-in. I find that outside of MobileRead many people absolutely equate ebook with Kindle.

[Atunah]

Woot.com has the silver kindle touch refurbs on sale for 24.99. Its in the kids and Toys section. A few weeks ago they had some keyboards for I think 14.99, those sold really fast though.
In case anyone wants a cheap kindle to have just in case.

[Alohamora]

Originally Posted by NullNix

Astonishingly, I agree with you. We have an existence proof: ixtab's hyphenation for mobis. That did all the work on the Kindle itself, and its performance and power impact (on a K4!) was so marginal that it was lost in the noise.

(What may have been impossible is things like enhanced page flip, which requires the ability to render nine pages at once, very fast. But, y'know... enhanced page flip is nearly useless because it's too small to read. I cannot imagine what Amazon were thinking when they implemented it, other than perhaps this would look cool in marketing demos.)

I use page flip all the time. Even on small screens I can pick out the start of sections of dialog, chapter and section headings. I use it often because it is so easy to use. I'd call it a lock-in creating feature but I was already very much locked in to Amazon.

However, if somehow the ability to backup books ever went away completely, that would break the lock-in. Since I have old Kindles, I'm not too worried about that happening anytime soon. I'll worry about it and make my decisions when does happen.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rashkae

Wellllll.... If Kindle performance had been crippled as badly as ADE on Kobo, as far as rendering, page turning, text selection etc... there would have been a riot.

Rendering with ADE is quite good. Page turning is not too slow. Text selection could be a little faster.

There is no way to know how slow or not doing the enhanced rendering with KF8 would be. My guess is not too slow.

[Barty]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Just having proprietary formats already creates enough of a wall to keep almost all of their customers locked in to Amazon. Relatively few bother with DRM removal and format conversion. Certainly not enough to matter to their bottom line.

I think the creation of a new format was less about trying to achieve 100% absolute lock in and more about being able to add new features, even if the features that they add are not the ones their customers have been asking for. Additional lock in is just an added benefit to them.

As they say, "Idle programmers are the devil's workshop."

As with locks, it's not necessary to keep everyone out, only to make it not worth the bother for 99% of the people.

Amazon knows there are some holes they can't plug -- the legacy devices -- but they are going keep at it. At some point, the legacy devices will become irrelevant.

I de-DRM not because I worry Amazon is going away (not in my lifetime) or out of some high principle. I just often need to edit the book because some formatting thing is bugging me. Okay, maybe I do get a warm fuzzy feeling knowing the book is really mine now

I'm not so sanguine that somehow, some way, someone will sort it out. Sometimes, people get tired and move away. Eventually, the "live DRM-free or die" crowd will, beg your pardon, die out, and there will be no-one left who chaff against the walled garden enough to do something about it.

[darryl]

@Barty. Your view is bleak but possible. Personally I more subscribe to the pendulum theory. There may be a hiatus for quite a while. But usually the pendulum will swing back and suddenly we have a renaissance. Putting things in perspective things have been so good for such a long time there have been few challenges for hackers so far as ebooks are concerned. Now we have kfx and the new Adobe drm but many of the hackers interested in the area are engaged in other projects, and, like those readers who care, are currently not seriously affected. What I expect to see is more interest develop as the screws are tightened.