Why are people unwilling to vote with their wallets?

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Well, I don't strip large images or embedded fonts. I like them. Only the embedded font for main text gets stripped, if there is one.

I don't either, I was just pointing out that the cover image alone from most commerical ebooks won't fit on a 1.4 MB floppy. (And implicitly pointing out how large the bloat to content ratio is for unillustrated books. The promotional content can also be large compared to the actual text of the book, but it is dwarfed by the cover image.)

[JBaby]

Originally Posted by Quoth

No, ALL KU books are available for purchase on Amazon. That better supports authors (writers) than a sub and borrows. They get the full "royalty" even if you don't read the ebook, or even if you read it 5 years later.

I addressed this point already in my comment. It’s not about them being available to purchase or not. I refuse to buy books from Amazon at all. That’s the point. I buy plenty of books from indie authors who sell wide. Almost every book I buy is indie unless is a bundle like the recent V.E Schwab and Martha Wells.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JBaby

I addressed this point already in my comment. It’s not about them being available to purchase or not. I refuse to buy books from Amazon at all. That’s the point. I buy plenty of books from indie authors who sell wide. Almost every book I buy is indie unless is a bundle like the recent V.E Schwab and Martha Wells.

Promoting KU and refusing to buy Kindle books is incomprehensible.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Uploading a copyrighted book to a cloud storage is the only way I can have a usable offsite backup copy. So yeah, of course I do it.

Encrypting first is good.

Though "cloud" is someone else's server so better for sharing than backups.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Though "cloud" is someone else's server so better for sharing than backups.

Of course, but my own server wouldn't be an offsite backup.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Except that I really DID get what I paid for.

Exactly my position.

When I first started with ebooks, I'd religiously remove DRM, convert to ePub for archiving etc., but I soon realised I was wasting my time. I'll buy a book, read it, and then (almost always) never look at it again.

The very few books I'll reread are, in fact, still there in my Amazon account, and in the unlikely event they weren't, it wouldn't kill me to buy them again. A good book costs less than a takeaway pizza - even if it was a strictly read-once deal (which it isn't) it would still be a bargain.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by jbjb

The very few books I'll reread are, in fact, still there in my Amazon account, and in the unlikely event they weren't, it wouldn't kill me to buy them again.

I repurchased countless physical copies of favorites I wore out/lost/gave away when I was younger. Never minded a bit.

The notion that each single digital purchase should be unencrypted/saved/backed-up/moved offsite and otherwise lovingly cherished and curated for for the rest of my natural life doesn't make a lick of sense to me any more. *shrug*

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The notion that each single digital purchase should be unencrypted/saved/backed-up/moved offsite and otherwise lovingly cherished and curated for for the rest of my natural life doesn't make a lick of sense to me any more. *shrug*

Not quite sure if I would use "lovingly" to describe my procedure for backing up my ebook collection. It is just part of my computer data that I backup. OTOH, I do go back and re-read books so I do like to keep them around.

I do decrypt my ebook purchases since back in the dim distant past, I was twice hit when a company shut down their ebook business and DRMmed ebooks would no longer be readable. I admit that in both cases, I removed the DRM on my local copies when I noticed the shutdown notices. Given the ease of removing DRM when importing into calibre, not an onerous task.

I have to admit that for whatever—possibly warped—reasons, I do not remove DRM from books I don't own. So Kobo Plus, Kindle Unlimited & library loans get dummy entries in calibre so I know I've read them but no local copies are stored.

[Sirtel]

I also reread a lot, and as I don't live in a large English-speaking country I've had many experiences of books I wanted to buy/rebuy not being available or no longer available - in whatever format. Moreover, several of my favorites are from smaller publishers or self-published, and such books do become unavailable with distressing regularity - yes, even ebooks can become unavailable if the author/publisher dies/goes out of business/decides to drop the publication for whatever reason.

If you never reread or reread only well-known books from big publishers, then it might be pointless for you to back up your books. For me, it's a must.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Not quite sure if I would use "lovingly" to describe my procedure for backing up my ebook collection. It is just part of my computer data that I backup. OTOH, I do go back and re-read books so I do like to keep them around.

Makes perfect sense if re-reading is your thing. Or if you back-up computer data.

Originally Posted by DNSB

I do decrypt my ebook purchases since back in the dim distant past, I was twice hit when a company shut down their ebook business and DRMmed ebooks would no longer be readable. I admit that in both cases, I removed the DRM on my local copies when I noticed the shutdown notices. Given the ease of removing DRM when importing into calibre, not an onerous task.

If you stockpile unread ebooks, this makes perfect sense too. I just don't do that. I don't purchase ebooks (or audiobooks) until I'm ready to read them. I let someone else curate my electronic TBR until I make the decision to read one. I'm JIT all the way. So DRM is no longer a mitigating factor in my reading/buying habits. I can't be bitten by DRM servers being shutdown, because I haven't purchased the book yet. By the time I do, I'm reading that DRMed copy and tossing it when I'm done.

I'm not saying everyone needs to think about this the way I do. I'm just saying that DRM is only a factor if you choose to let it be. I am fully post-property when it comes to consuming ebooks and audiobooks. I don't need to own the bits and bytes after I've wrung all the good out of them by reading them (or "listening" to them for all of the pedants out there getting ready to leap ). I've gotten every bit of value out of them that I'm ever going to get. Why keep the carcasses?

And for all the newcomers out there, this is coming from a guy who used to religiously remove DRM (and actually contributed quite a bit of code to the software you all use to "own" your ebooks). So I'm not being blind (and I'm not underinformed). I've just moved on. More and more people are.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

If you stockpile unread ebooks, this makes perfect sense too. I just don't do that. I don't purchase ebooks (or audiobooks) until I'm ready to read them. I let someone else curate my electronic TBR until I make the decision to read one. I'm JIT all the way. So DRM is no longer a mitigating factor in my reading/buying habits. I can't be bitten by DRM servers being shutdown, because I haven't purchased the book yet. By the time I do, I'm reading that DRMed copy and tossing it when I'm done.

Currently, my TBR pile is sitting at 2 books. I tend to burn through books rather enthusiastically.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I'm not saying everyone needs to think about this the way I do. I'm just saying that DRM is only a factor if you choose to let it be. I am fully post-property when it comes to consuming ebooks and audiobooks. I don't need to own the bits and bytes after I've wrung all the good out of them by reading them (or "listening" to them for all of the pedants out there getting ready to leap ). I've gotten every bit of value out of them that I'm ever going to get. Why keep the carcasses?

And for all the newcomers out there, this is coming from a guy who used to religiously remove DRM (and actually contributed quite a bit of code to the software you all use to "own" your ebooks). So I'm not being blind (and I'm not underinformed). I've just moved on. More and more people are.

As mentioned before, as a person who will re-read a book decades later, my view differs. That does not make either point of view wrong or less valid, just different. My view may change but at this point in my life, I suspect it's ossified.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

My view may change but at this point in my life, I suspect it's ossified.

Mine has not changed in the 15 years I've been reading ebooks, so I'm pretty sure it's not going to. And I enjoy tinkering with calibre and my ebook library - it's a hobby for me in itself, quite aside from reading. I suspect that people who have never particularly enjoyed messing with their ebooks are far more likely to "move on". For myself, I see no reason to.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I suspect that people who have never particularly enjoyed messing with their ebooks are far more likely to "move on". For myself, I see no reason to.

I enjoyed messing with my ebooks for a long time too. Then I didn't. There is no rhyme or reason to any of this. Why try to assign any? People are different. Some people change, some people don't. There is no default behavior to be found here.

[haertig]

Reading is a hobby. Curating eBooks is a hobby. Separate and distinct hobbies. If someone wants to do only one, both, or neither of these hobbies I'm just fine with that. Personally, I enjoy both hobbies.

The reason you choose a particular hobby is because you get enjoyment from doing it. You don't have to justify your enjoyment to anyone. It's fine to cordially discuss your various hobbies as we are doing here. But if someone looks down their nose at your hobby, that is an indication that they are probably a little too self-important and their opinions might best be ignored.

I can happily talk with a stamp collector while having zero interest in collecting stamps myself. And they may look at me and wonder what kind of fool would stay up late and go freeze their butt off in the middle of the night looking through a long tube at little dots of light in the sky. Then you've got the people spending hours with binoculars looking at birds while their neighbor is more into picking those birds off with a slingshot. And don't get me started on cat people vs. dog people. We're all different.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Do you mean after you have stripped the huge amazon mandated cover image and any embedded fonts?

As an example, the "All Systems Red" Murderbot EPUB is 3.1 MB with a 2.3 MB cover image and 0.4 MB embedded font.

Yes! Why huge on a 800x600 or 1440 × 1080 monochrome screen ??

Size reduction is one of my intake steps. The only thing I leave original size is Maps/charts