Penguin House pulling all titles from Unlimited Services

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Some clarification from the randy penguin:

Via:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2020/...cess-services/

That's good, if it's the real reason. Because Unlimited (especially via SP KDP Select) does reduce competition. The tracking methods invade privacy. No way should the book seller know how many or which pages you've read.
They also cheat authors & publishers because the page read tracking isn't reliable. Remuneration should be per book, not per page.

I regularly bring up Amazon's business practices because they are ultimately toxic to publishers, authors and readers. Their aim is complete control of books.
They are at 90% of ebooks and in USA over 80% of online paper book sales.
An example of lack of regulation by US Government who rarely protect consumers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ions_by_Amazon

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I do agree that is skeezy.



I'd like to point you to any Quentin Tarantino movie.

You could argue that any nudity or violence is gratuitous. Some of the greatest films of all time were made under the Hays code.

I love horror movies, especially the George Romero zombie movies and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies. I'm not a prude or calling for censorship. I just always thought the dichotomy between sex and violence in the States was strange. (I can only talk about the US as that's all I'm familiar with.)

At any rate, I don't mean to derail the thread. I'll let it go.

ZodWallop, were you perchance on the now defunct Imdb forum?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Remuneration should be per book, not per page.

Why?
The current system rewards authors who write books people want to read all the way through to the end, and penalises click-bait titles which aren't good enough to get people to continue reading. It also removes the incentives for gaming the system by splitting books up into multiple small titles.
Isn't that a good thing?
If this had nothing to do with Amazon, say there was an indie authors collective which had set up their own subscription service and paid on the same basis, would you have the same opinion?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Why?
The current system rewards authors who write books people want to read all the way through to the end, and penalises click-bait titles which aren't good enough to get people to continue reading. It also removes the incentives for gaming the system by splitting books up into multiple small titles.
Isn't that a good thing?
If this had nothing to do with Amazon, say there was an indie authors collective which had set up their own subscription service and paid on the same basis, would you have the same opinion?

It's not buying and selling books.
It's a completely new model by a Monopolist. It's the wrong solution to dishonest publishers/authors publishing "books" as episodes / part works and pretend they are books. There should be word counts. Also better policing of reviews. Amazon product reviews are gamed. It also can affect how people read books and review them. It damages the book as story medium.

It's also another attack on privacy and inherently "tricking" people into the parasitical and exploitive subscription model. Obviously subscriptions don't have to be parasitical and exploitive, but it's a fact that most are and are very much more profitable than straight sales.

[DiapDealer]

The relentless and unreasonable hatred of anything Amazon is toxic to normal conversation on Mobileread.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

The relentless and unreasonable hatred of anything Amazon is toxic to normal conversation on Mobileread.

Some people just need to vent at every opportunity.
Esp since it won't change a thing.

Thread is played out, anyway.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

It's not buying and selling books.
It's a completely new model by a Monopolist. It's the wrong solution to dishonest publishers/authors publishing "books" as episodes / part works and pretend they are books. There should be word counts. Also better policing of reviews. Amazon product reviews are gamed. It also can affect how people read books and review them. It damages the book as story medium.

It's also another attack on privacy and inherently "tricking" people into the parasitical and exploitive subscription model. Obviously subscriptions don't have to be parasitical and exploitive, but it's a fact that most are and are very much more profitable than straight sales.

So no answer to my question, just more ranting about Amazon?
And as for this: "subscriptions don't have to be parasitical and exploitive, but it's a fact that most are"
I disagree, and I think almost everyone else would too.
I think your views on Amazon are causing you to seriously lose perspective.
So Netflix and Spotify are parasitical and exploitative?
The RHS/National Trust/Engligh Heritage are parasitical and exploitative?
The unlimited data plan on my phone is parasitical and exploitative?
Or are they fine, but they would be bad if Amazon ran them?

[binaryhermit]

Regarding paying by the book, there's a lot of what could be classified as small pamphlets in KU, should those be paid the same as a long-ish novel?
(And IIRC KU used to pay by the read, it led to books being broken down into many parts)

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Luffy

ZodWallop, were you perchance on the now defunct Imdb forum?

I likely posted there a few times. I really liked IMDb back in its early days. I didn't know their forums were gone. I don't go there much any longer.