Will Digital Books Stagnate?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by conan50

Both

Well then.
There's our problem.

If you are going to talk about two different things, you need to make it clear which one you are talking about at any given time -- these abrupt changes in topic are not exactly conducive to a sane discussion.

I have already had Kindle books that worked for years on previous generation Kindle devices that when I tried to download them to a Paperwhite the book would not work on it even though it was a Kindle book. I got a refund from Amazon, but the experience taught me that obsolescence can come to any closed, drm-protected format. That was both a locked down, drm protected ebook, and within Amazon's closed system. If I had taken extensive notes, annotations, and highlights with that ebook--those would have been gone.

Now that is interesting, because I can't say I've really heard of Amazon deleting peoples' books for no reason (or any reason at all, aside for that one incident with the illegally-submitted book).

But let's be honest. The problem you mention has absolutely nothing to do with Amazon, and everything to do with "ebookstore".
Are you seriously suggesting that Amazon's closed system, moreso than every other ebookstore out there, which are all just as much of a closed system, will swallow up peoples' annotations?

You must be suggesting it -- since you seem to be tying Amazon's not-the-EPUB-"standard" format to their "closed" system (as though there were such thing as an open one to compare it to) and coming out with "Amazon is unusually dangerous".

You mention Calibre is open source, and that is why you are not afraid of it going away. I could say that is the same reason I like Epub and drm-free ebooks.

You are comparing Apples to oranges.

...

You assume that everyone can just use Calibre to set their ebooks free. I assume the average reader is not going to do that, not take the time to learn how to do that, or be afraid of breaking a law to do it.

For the technically inclined, you are right. But your average person who is not on this Forum, and is using a closed system with closed file formats that are drm-protected and will have serious issues when their supplier of choice goes under, and the way things are going, Amazon will probably be the last man standing, and as I just pointed out, even with Amazon it is no guarantee your ebooks will not become obsolete in a few years when they change devices and software.

As DiapDealer said, the unusual person who cares one way or the other, will most likely already be dealing with the problem.


And once again I call foul over your claim that Amazon is "disappearing" your books.
I may be misjudging you, sorry -- but I really haven't heard of this ever happening before. Ever.

Until just around now, actually. Now two people are claiming the same thing. Here's the other guy: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=3183085


Anyway -- I want to know why no one else has ever heard of this phenomenon in the past.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

Fighting Cyclops of the protozoan pond water variety I think I may be able to manage. Any such jobs going?

Nope -- the only job I know of is the one Nobody used to have -- and that wasn't of the protozoan pond water variety.

You may be out of luck after all.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Well then.
There's our problem.

If you are going to talk about two different things, you need to make it clear which one you are talking about at any given time -- these abrupt changes in topic are not exactly conducive to a sane discussion.



Now that is interesting, because I can't say I've really heard of Amazon deleting peoples' books for no reason (or any reason at all, aside for that one incident with the illegally-submitted book).

But let's be honest. The problem you mention has absolutely nothing to do with Amazon, and everything to do with "ebookstore".
Are you seriously suggesting that Amazon's closed system, moreso than every other ebookstore out there, which are all just as much of a closed system, will swallow up peoples' annotations?

You must be suggesting it -- since you seem to be tying Amazon's not-the-EPUB-"standard" format to their "closed" system (as though there were such thing as an open one to compare it to) and coming out with "Amazon is unusually dangerous".



You are comparing Apples to oranges.



As DiapDealer said, the unusual person who cares one way or the other, will most likely already be dealing with the problem.


And once again I call foul over your claim that Amazon is "disappearing" your books.
I may be misjudging you, sorry -- but I really haven't heard of this ever happening before. Ever.

Until just around now, actually. Now two people are claiming the same thing. Here's the other guy: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho....php?p=3183085


Anyway -- I want to know why no one else has ever heard of this phenomenon in the past.

The only time I have run across non-existent books was when I went to leave a review.

Now I have had books not show up in an archive or the cloud. Problem solved by contacting Amazon who immediately pushed the book or books in one case to the device of my choice. Note at that point I had over 7000 ebooks.

[GERGE]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

That is a positively terrifying, horrible idea.

Plaintext files by definition cannot possibly be formatted, with options or templates or anything.
As soon as you add any information that allows you to apply a template or any sort of options (other than a base font and font size for 100% homogenized text), you have magically transmuted it into rich text!
And once you are using rich text, you might as well package it in e.g. a ZIP folder, at which point you have an "EPUB".

This has already been exhaustively discussed here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...=243326&page=7
If you like, you can continue that conversation, there.

Actually, there is some merit in what he said, but not in that way. Plaintext is always evolving, as hard as that is to understand if you don't already know I what I mean =)

The answers are in markup languages. Digital books are in html right now, which is a markup language too, but unreadable and capable of so much more. What digital books need is a humane markup language, like reStructuredText (which is my favorite) or Markdown (which is the universal favorite). If I knew that it would be accepted, I would have created a humane markup language for ebooks, but I know it won't be right now.

But I think future is with them. You can write, read and display easily. You can even define formatting at the beginning of the file, which would make it ridiculously easy to edit.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

As I occasionally "bother" LIT files I must object to being referred to as a "no one" .

You can't object to being referred to as "no one", according to popular wisdom you're the only person who knows everything.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by GERGE

Actually, there is some merit in what he said, but not in that way. Plaintext is always evolving, as hard as that is to understand if you don't already know I what I mean =)

The answers are in markup languages. Digital books are in html right now, which is a markup language too, but unreadable and capable of so much more. What digital books need is a humane markup language, like reStructuredText (which is my favorite) or Markdown (which is the universal favorite). If I knew that it would be accepted, I would have created a humane markup language for ebooks, but I know it won't be right now.

But I think future is with them. You can write, read and display easily. You can even define formatting at the beginning of the file, which would make it ridiculously easy to edit.

As discussed extensively in the aforementioned thread. These posts must've been written with you in mind
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=102
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=103
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...&postcount=104

The purpose of language is to communicate -- it's why we have agreed-upon languages.

---

Clearly, we agree that plaintext (*.txt) is a bad idea. What I don't understand, Professor Clarity, is why you word it as though you are disagreeing with me.
Again, as discussed extensively in the aforementioned thread, it doesn't really aid the discussion at hand, to point out that Markup Is Plain Text Too -- when I was responding to someone who dislikes EPUB because it is based on HTML, and HTML apparently has structure which limits you from formatting it as you please.

Apparently what the world really needs is a return to the 1980s -- computers these days just aren't flexible enough to provide user choice.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by conan50

You could be right. I suspect people will be both surprised and very unhappy if they find one day their purchased ebooks are gone. I also suspect we are going to find this out in the next few years.

Even here, though, where we aren't at all representative of the typical reader, the majority of people say that they never re-read books; they simply buy a book, read it, and never look at it again. I do re-read my books, but I appear to be in a minority in doing so.

[conan50]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Even here, though, where we aren't at all representative of the typical reader, the majority of people say that they never re-read books; they simply buy a book, read it, and never look at it again. I do re-read my books, but I appear to be in a minority in doing so.

I also like rereading books, it's like visiting old friends

[Cinisajoy]

I reread some books but not many.
Oh my mom found a study that says your brain works harder if you are reading something more complicated than if you are reading for pleasure.
Does anyone realize how hard it is to tell a parent "do your homework". She was procrastinating last night.

[DiapDealer]

Oh, I like visiting old friends occasionally, too. But only the ones don't try to tell me their life story from the very beginning every time they see me.

[eschwartz]

I like reminiscing with old friends about old times.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Even here, though, where we aren't at all representative of the typical reader, the majority of people say that they never re-read books; they simply buy a book, read it, and never look at it again. I do re-read my books, but I appear to be in a minority in doing so.

[Bold mine]

That describes me perfectly. After reading I immediately delete it as I do not want to see it again.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Fbone

[Bold mine]

That describes me perfectly. After reading I immediately delete it as I do not want to see it again.

I used to re-read because I didn't have enough money to buy more books. Now that I can buy more and have a huge tbr list I still don't delete. I have all my books on my devices so I know if I read something before, and also so I don't buy something I already have. Calibre Companion is great for finding a book easily and also good for grouping my books logically. I have groups by genre that I have read, and by genre that I haven't read yet.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Fbone

That describes me perfectly. After reading I immediately delete it as I do not want to see it again.

Then the next question--by those who can't relate (of which I'm not one)--is: "then why do you buy at all? Why not just use the library?" (as if the library had every title you might want to read at the time you might want to read it. )

[conan50]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Then the next question--by those who can't relate (of which I'm not one)--is: "then why do you buy at all? Why not just use the library?" (as if the library had every title you might want to read at the time you might want to read it. )

That's what I was thinking. If I was a 'read it only once' person I could save some big bucks and just use the library, Overdrive, or one of those subscription services.