Touch Remove Ads from the special offers edition?

[JedV]

Originally Posted by 46jimbo

Would simply turning off the wifi stop the adds?

I think you'd get stuck with the same ones over and over again.

It would be an epic fail for Kobo if the ads are easily disabled. It will be interesting to see what happens.

[nogle]

Originally Posted by JedV

I think you'd get stuck with the same ones over and over again.

It would be an epic fail for Kobo if the ads are easily disabled. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I agree that it would be the epitome of stupid to allow the ads to be easily disabled. And yet, they are vulnerable to the simplest hack; when not using the Kobo, put it away or place it facedown.

[nogle]

Originally Posted by r.bares

From an ethical perspective its really quite obvious why this should be frowned upon, Kobo have provided a discount in exchange for showing advertising on an ongoing basis, not merely to sell the product with advertising in the first instance. If you accept this discount and then remove yourself from their advertising-base, you are harming their bottom line, and in my opinion it is broadly equivalent to theft, the taking of something which is not yours and you have no right to take.

That is not to say that I think people who want to do this are "bad people", but this is certainly not something which should be condoned.

I disagree. I think these people are in the same category as those who slip into a public transit seat ahead of an elderly/pregnant/disabled person.

[Latch]

There are no two ways about it: if you buy the ad-supported version in order to get the discount and then you want to hack the ads away, you're a weasel.

[spindlegirl]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the ads don't intefere with the actual reading process do they? I don't have a special offers touch, but when my kobo is in sleep mode or power off, I don't even look at it. Or flip it over so the plastic casing is showing instead, or use the cover, Luke

[David58117]

Eh, I see it as a very minor offense and I can't imagine how it could possibly hurt Kobo. I doubt they're on a "get paid every time the ad runs on an individual reader" agreement with each ad, if so - what about the people who never turn on wifi? Kobo wouldn't be making $ with them either..

And I'm not about to get on my soap box and preach about "ethics" with regard to software and electronic agreements, since in my 20 years of using computers I'm pretty certain at some point in time I've invalidated warranties and used items I paid for in ways the developer didn't intend.

There must be quite a few software saints on this message board..

[Xennex1170]

Originally Posted by David58117

Eh, I see it as a very minor offense and I can't imagine how it could possibly hurt Kobo. I doubt they're on a "get paid every time the ad runs on an individual reader" agreement with each ad, if so - what about the people who never turn on wifi? Kobo wouldn't be making $ with them either..

And I'm not about to get on my soap box and preach about "ethics" with regard to software and electronic agreements, since in my 20 years of using computers I'm pretty certain at some point in time I've invalidated warranties and used items I paid for in ways the developer didn't intend.

There must be quite a few software saints on this message board..

Well, either that or a lot of Developers that know how much it hurts when you subvert a revenue source that both the seller and buyer agreed upon.

We don't know really how their ad system gets paid or how they prove to their advertisers that there is a certain number of units that are showing ads but it is likely it has something to do with the ereader connecting to the Kobo servers and updating its cache of ads. (Ok, I'm assuming the ads change from time to time here and it's not the same ones for months on end.) Another thing is that the agreement to purchase an ad supported unit DIRECTLY affected your purchase price. It is the primary reason for it being cheaper.

You are correct in saying Kobo probably makes no ad revenue from those not turning on their devices or ever connecting to their servers but honestly how many owners will do that? If I worked for Kobo and was devious enough I would probably link the advertising code tightly with the code that controls updating the DB or the wireless. You'll be either unable to sideload or not have Wifi access and won't have ads but you'll have to do deal with something hobbled on your ereader.

Originally Posted by David58117

I see it as a very minor offense and I can't imagine how it could possibly hurt Kobo.

Normally I'm all for hacking devices. Heck, I probably wouldn't care if the ad removal hack involved replacing nickle (e.g. as Duokan does on the Kindle). After all, it is our device and we should have the right to do creative and innovative stuff with it.

Yet something just rubs me wrong about removing the ads on the special offers edition. I think that it has something to do with Kobo shipping a version without advertising. By buying the special offers version the consumer enters an agreement with Kobo: a discount in exchange for viewing advertising. By removing the advertising the buyer is breaking their word. Since we were given a choice, that sort of agreement seems completely legitimate to me.

[GoingDown]

I agree with BWinmill. I feel it is not ethical to remove advertisements from the cheaper version.

But, hacking the device other ways, I like to do all that tinkering around

Currently I have rooted my device and played around with the sqlite database.

[David58117]

Originally Posted by Xennex1170

Well, either that or a lot of Developers that know how much it hurts when you subvert a revenue source that both the seller and buyer agreed upon.

We don't know really how their ad system gets paid or how they prove to their advertisers that there is a certain number of units that are showing ads but it is likely it has something to do with the ereader connecting to the Kobo servers and updating its cache of ads. (Ok, I'm assuming the ads change from time to time here and it's not the same ones for months on end.) Another thing is that the agreement to purchase an ad supported unit DIRECTLY affected your purchase price. It is the primary reason for it being cheaper.

You are correct in saying Kobo probably makes no ad revenue from those not turning on their devices or ever connecting to their servers but honestly how many owners will do that? If I worked for Kobo and was devious enough I would probably link the advertising code tightly with the code that controls updating the DB or the wireless. You'll be either unable to sideload or not have Wifi access and won't have ads but you'll have to do deal with something hobbled on your ereader.

I admit I have no idea how their profits are earned from the ad enabled units, but I severely doubt it's based on "each and every time a specific units runs a specific ad" - as there's too many ways Kobo can be screwed out of $ on that deal.

It makes 100% more sense to me for the sales figures to be what attracts the advertisers. "We have a product that is in front of blahblahblah many users each day - how much will you pay us to advertise on it?" makes more sense than "Okay - give us money and we'll put you on serial number 472720-794793 for 2 weeks...but your time may be cut off since most users have wifi off and may not connect to our servers in time for your ad run...you can just not pay us for that time, that's cool."

The user paid less by agreeing to purchase an ad supported reader, and indeed that's what they purchased. Once they own it and apply a hack to it, they would be just as guilty as any of us who have ever broke a software agreement (if there is in fact a software agreement somewhere)...and I'm sure pretty much everybody here has at one time or another.

They didn't pay to have to personally view each and every ad,..how would you enforce that? And what about the people who turn their device upside down and ignore them all?

[John F]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

Normally I'm all for hacking devices. Heck, I probably wouldn't care if the ad removal hack involved replacing nickle (e.g. as Duokan does on the Kindle). After all, it is our device and we should have the right to do creative and innovative stuff with it.

Yet something just rubs me wrong about removing the ads on the special offers edition. I think that it has something to do with Kobo shipping a version without advertising. By buying the special offers version the consumer enters an agreement with Kobo: a discount in exchange for viewing advertising. By removing the advertising the buyer is breaking their word. Since we were given a choice, that sort of agreement seems completely legitimate to me.

I don't see much difference between hacking and the special offers thing.

Kobo probably doesn't want people to hack the advertising, and they probably don't want people hacking their non-advertising devices.

FWIW, if I wanted to I'd hack either.

[GoingDown]

Originally Posted by John F

Kobo probably doesn't want people to hack the advertising, and they probably don't want people hacking their non-advertising devices.

What harm can be caused by hacking non-advertising devices (other than you could possibly copy & remote drm from the books, which can be done already by other means)?

The firmware is GPL-licensed for the other parts than the nickel/fickel, so you can download the source anyway.

Hacking some secrets from nickel/fickel probably?

[John F]

Originally Posted by GoingDown

What harm can be caused by hacking non-advertising devices (other than you could possibly copy & remote drm from the books, which can be done already by other means)?

...

About the same amount of that can be done in hacking advertising devices. IMO. I don't think the advertising is that big of deal. It could just be a marketing gimmick to appear to make the device cheaper, thus selling more kobos, thus more people using the Kobo store.

Whereas hacking could make it easier/more likely to bypass the Kobo store. Kobo wants you to use their store, it is another revenue stream for them. The cost of the Kobo is relatively cheap in the hopes of driving more people to the Kobo store.

Yet you bought the device, you paid for it, you should be able to do what you want with it.

I can see both sides of the argument.

[John F]

What's a "nickel/fickel"?

[Sharkus]

nickel = name of the GUI app that runs on the Kobo. It might have also been the internal codename for the original Kobo device, though I cannot confirm or deny that