Amazon and DRM changes

[ownedbycats]

Also, is it just me or do KU series often feel more like serials? I'm still pissed off about buying a book to find it ended on a cliffhanger.

[C-novice]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Also, is it just me or do KU series often feel more like serials? I'm still pissed off about buying a book to find it ended on a cliffhanger.

. . . and you got to wait for the next in the series, sometimes a very short wait, sometimes quite a while. But that applies not only with KU books.

The thing that always amazes me is some authors have as many books out as months in a year. I keep wondering about how quickly and often they put out books as if there is an 'assembly line' going 24/7 or the AI software. . . oops! And at times those are the 'rubbishy' ones.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Also, is it just me or do KU series often feel more like serials? I'm still pissed off about buying a book to find it ended on a cliffhanger.

Eh? I've read many good series where some or most books ended in a cliffhanger. By no means only self-pubs, tradpubs too. It's pretty common with fantasy and SF and doesn't bother me in the least.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I'm with you there. I was actually given a Kindle Paperwhite 3 and still do not buy from Amazon any longer.

Also: I was doing some thinking and... if they'd only blocked Kindle Unlimited loans, I'd be perfectly fine with it! It's a loan and they need some way to track pages to compensate the authors.

Where I draw the line is is when they also apply it to purchased books.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Also: I was doing some thinking and... if they'd only blocked Kindle Unlimited loans, I'd be perfectly fine with it! It's a loan and they need some way to track pages to compensate the authors.

Where I draw the line is is when they also apply it to purchased books.

To be fair, they're not blocking purchased books - yet. Download & transfer via USB is still available for those. That you need an eink Kindle to unlock this option is understandable from Amazon's POV - why should they cater to people who read outside their system? And why should they maintain an ancient version of their app to cater to those people?

Not that I necessarily agree with them or like the direction things are heading in. Just that so far a Kindle customer still has an option to download their purchases. For how long, we'll see, I guess.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Also: I was doing some thinking and... if they'd only blocked Kindle Unlimited loans, I'd be perfectly fine with it! It's a loan and they need some way to track pages to compensate the authors.

...

Why don't they use the same model as library loans?

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by John F

Why don't they use the same model as library loans?

To avoid deDRM.

[John F]

Originally Posted by ottischwenk

To avoid deDRM.

They could use the library model and use their own DRM.

The library model I am talking about is Amaxon buys an ebook license, it gets a limited nunbef of checkouts, and then Amazonhas to purchase another license, ...

Libraries use this model, why can't Amazon?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

They could use the library model and use their own DRM.

The library model I am talking about is Amaxon buys an ebook license, it gets a limited nunbef of checkouts, and then Amazonhas to purchase another license, ...

Libraries use this model, why can't Amazon?

A couple of reasons come to mind. Amazon is a publisher and a retailer—any libraries that are either of those come to mind? That KU authors are paid on a pages read basis so the books have to stay within the Amazon ecosystem to allow tracking that number? That KU has no time limit on a loan? That the vast majority of KU books are exclusive to Amazon? That Amazon expects to make a profit which is not an expectation for a public library?

I won't even get into the sad history of the number of ways that people tried to game KU to increase their payments which has resulted in the current pages read algorithm with it's conditions which are not public knowledge?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by DNSB

A couple of reasons come to mind. Amazon is a publisher and a retailer—any libraries that are either of those come to mind? That KU authors are paid on a pages read basis so the books have to stay within the Amazon ecosystem to allow tracking that number? That KU has no time limit on a loan? That the vast majority of KU books are exclusive to Amazon? That Amazon expects to make a profit which is not an expectation for a public library?

I won't even get into the sad history of the number of ways that people tried to game KU to increase their payments which has resulted in the current pages read algorithm with it's conditions which are not public knowledge?

OK - I'm dumb: Why all the question marks?

[DNSB]

Since I am not privy to the inner discussions of Amazon management, those are my personal opinions. After a previous discussion with the person I was replying to, I did not want to get into another quibble fest about forcing my opinions as though they were engraved on stone tablets straight from the mountaintop. I felt the question marks might help with that and took less space than "These are my personal opinions and worth every penny you are not paying for them."

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

To be fair, they're not blocking purchased books - yet. Download & transfer via USB is still available for those. That you need an eink Kindle to unlock this option is understandable from Amazon's POV - why should they cater to people who read outside their system?

For one, they could sell to people that do not own a Kindle. It would also help avoid monopoly concerns.

And why should they maintain an ancient version of their app to cater to those people?

Of course, there would be no need to maintain an ancient version of their app (or any version of their app) if books could be downloaded by all users from Amazon's website.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

For one, they could sell to people that do not own a Kindle. It would also help avoid monopoly concerns.

I agree with you, but it's pretty obvious Amazon only wants people to read inside their fortress. They want to control every aspect of your reading, to know what and how you read to the last period and comma. Otherwise why all this messing with proprietary formats? They could just have sold epubs from the start.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if they removed Download & Transfer entirely in the near future. If anything, I'm surprised it exists at all. I guess it was still common for people to have wired internet instead of wifi 10-12 years ago, but that's no longer the case.

[innocenat]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Otherwise why all this messing with proprietary formats? They could just have sold epubs from the start.

They can't, as EPUB was standardize just 2 month before initial Kindle release.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by innocenat

They can't, as EPUB was standardize just 2 month before initial Kindle release.

They could have switched over later, or at least included epub in their formats if they'd really been interested in selling to as many people as possible. But that has never been their primary purpose. Instead, they started to lock down their system more and more.