Kobo unveils Kobo Stack

[Cactus Chef]

Surprised I haven't seen any mention of this on MR yet, given it's all over Reddit and Bluesky:

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/stack

$3/mth subscription (in US) for the ability to finally be able to sync sideloaded content.

[issybird]

Huh. Not a good look, Kobo, when Kindle does it for free, gratis, nothing.

A send-to-Kindle clone was my greatest wish from Kobo, but not to the tune of $36/year. No thanks. I’ll still use my Kindles for that function.

[Logseman]

When Apple launched iTunes Match, they associated your music with their catalog. It wasn't always perfect, but then you had good metadata for all your collection. These guys aren't even offering this 15 years later.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by issybird

Huh. Not a good look, Kobo, when Kindle does it for free, gratis, nothing.

A send-to-Kindle clone was my greatest wish from Kobo, but not to the tune of $36/year. No thanks. I’ll still use my Kindles for that function.

My guess would be that Amazon--through their side business of AWS--can afford to be a loss leader on that functionality. Perhaps Kobo cannot.

I have to give kudos to Kobo for at least listening to feedback: lord knows that Sideloaded Sync, Send to Email to Upload, and Multiple Library Card Support were easily the top 3 most frequent requests/complaints I'd see on r/kobo. It's just a shame that the top two will be locked behind a paywall.

I may try it out for a year and see how much I really use it. I am already paying for a premium Instapaper subscription, though, so SaaS-fatigue is fast setting in...

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by Logseman

When Apple launched iTunes Match, they associated your music with their catalog. It wasn't always perfect, but then you had good metadata for all your collection. These guys aren't even offering this 15 years later.

Didn't that famously result in false-positives/collisions where people's personally-uploaded music to iTunes would then get replaced with what Apple thought was the same album but often wasn't?

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

My guess would be that Amazon--through their side business of AWS--can afford to be a loss leader on that functionality. Perhaps Kobo cannot.

Fair enough. I suspect that many will have the same gut reaction I did, though.

Perhaps if I were only-Kobo I’d consider it, because it’s very, very convenient and a huge increase in functionality. But since I’ve got a perfectly good foot in Amazon’s waters as well, it’s easy to do without (even though Kobo is my preferred purveyor). In any case, I think I’d balk at $3/month. I’m not sure what price I’d be willing to put on it.

[Logseman]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

Didn't that famously result in false-positives/collisions where people's personally-uploaded music to iTunes would then get replaced with what Apple thought was the same album but often wasn't?

As far as I used that in the past the collisions were pretty minimal.

[Sirtel]

Personally I don't consider the price too high to pay, but I prefer sideloading via calibre to other means of populating my Kobos (automatic metadata and collections, synopsis in book details, series info, omnibus numbering and a few other things). And I don't want to go to the trouble of emailing/uploading several thousands of ebooks to Kobo (I don't read directly downloaded books, because I edit the formatting and metadata). So I'm probably not going to use it. I might try it if/when it becomes available in my area.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by issybird

Huh. Not a good look, Kobo, when Kindle does it for free, gratis, nothing.

A send-to-Kindle clone was my greatest wish from Kobo, but not to the tune of $36/year. No thanks. I’ll still use my Kindles for that function.

Don't think of it as just a send-to-Kindle clone, it's $36/year to beta test a horrible version of the Kobo OS too!

Jokes aside, it does have SOME other benefits, it's also an extended warranty in some countries (though not the U.S) which is maybe kinda worth it. It also adds workbooks for journaling/planning which really seem like they shouldn't be a sub...

[Aleron Ives]

I'll give it to Kobo for finding a creative way to monetise the use of libraries. I guess Kobo decided the Overdrive integration was a bit too good when people were able to use multiple libraries at once, so they broke that functionality on purpose in order to reintroduce it later as a paid subscription feature.

[PeterT]

Huh. The multiple library support is not a paid service

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

I'll give it to Kobo for finding a creative way to monetise the use of libraries. I guess Kobo decided the Overdrive integration was a bit too good when people were able to use multiple libraries at once, so they broke that functionality on purpose in order to reintroduce it later as a paid subscription feature.

That's a free benefit of the upcoming/beta 6.0 OS, not the Kobo Stack subscription.

[Aleron Ives]

Oh, that's good to hear. Thanks for the correction. :