Re: Why the Kindle and other e-book readers are doomed

on 6/14/2009, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy supposed :
Mike Muth <mike.muth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:h11vpq046k@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

After serious thinking Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy wrote :
Kurt Busiek <kurt@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:h111ea$11v$1@xxxxxxxxxx:

On 2009-06-13 13:00:59 -0700, Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy <taustinca@xxxxxxxxx> said:

The biggest thing isn't DRM in and of itelf, it's Kindle's
use of it to literally rent you books. You pay for them, you
download them, they reside on your reader, and Amazon kills
your account and they go away.

Not if you save a copy.

Others have said, specifically, from personal experience, otherwise.

Actually, no.

Actually, yes.

According to both the consumerist and Amazon.com,
you can still read the books you have on file, you just can't
download them again.

According to people _who have had it happen to them_, you can't access it even if you have downloaded it.

Claiming otherwise is not a refutation.

The accounts I have read all indicated that people were unable to access the books at Amazon.com, not that they could no longer access the material they had downloaded.

A connection to Amazon is not required to read existing material. If it were, then people who, like me, are out of the country could no longer use their Kindles. I have no problems, even though there has been no connection between my Kindle and Amazon.com for seven months. I cannot download directly to my Kindle but I can read anything I have stored on the device.

Now, that's a bloody nuisance for the
iPhone Kindle app, but not for the reader. I have all of the
books on my Kindle backed up to my PC, on DVD, and on my network
backup.

Amazon says they keep your account
active so you can always download any book you've bought if
you want to read it again.

Unless they close your account for some reason, legitimate or otherwise.

Tha is quite true. Your Kindle account is linked to your
Amazon.com regular account. Close the Amazon account and you
close the Kindle account.

But "always" is such a misunderstood
word, and businesses tend to think it means "for as long as we
choose to offer the program," rather than "for as long as
you'd like to make use of it."

So when I buy books for the Kindle, I save them to a memory
stick, and if Amazon's "always" turns out to be of briefer
duration than the name implies, I have them stored on media
within my control.

Just don't run afoul of Amazon's good will.

The account cancellations I've heard of were due to "excessive returns." I suppose it's analagous to stores banning comparison
shoppers or those who buy something for a one time use and then
return it.

Or it's a bogus algorithm, based on something that is usually reliable, but not always, like dollar values, and not taking defective merchandise in to account. That the high profile incidents have been reversed once the blogosphere got wind of it is highly suggestive.

All that suggests is that it is an automated system which people can have reversed. Any automated system is going to make mistakes. Amazon ought to have a person reviewing the cancellations before they happen, but obviously isn't.

You will, of course, pretend otherwise, and hide behind your Amazon pom-poms, as you have done already.

Hide behind my Amazon pom-poms. My what insightful argument. I have not sought to excuse Amazon of anything. On the other hand, I must question how much fact is being debated and how much is "someone told someone else and I read what they wrote about it."

You don't like the Kindle. Fine. It's your choice and I think neither more nor less of you because of that choice. However, when arguing things like this, it does serve one well to set such prejudices aside and actually examine the facts. The fact is, that I have not been able to find even one case of a person not being able to read files they had downloaded to their Kindle or PC. What I was able to find was people who had purchased content and were then unable to download it again from Amazon. People who don't back up their files always seem to blame someone else...

No idea whether e-readers will ever take off like the iPod --
I knid of doubt it -- but I do hope they become more common
than they are now, because I like 'em a lot.

They're still too expensive - they need to be under $100. The screens really aren't good enough yet, and they're too
complicated. The ideal ebook reader will have maybe four
buttons, for next/previous page, menu of books, and display
options. And will take standard flash memory cards of some
sort.

To read books, you need the forward button, the back button, the
select button and the home button. The other buttons are for
the other things you can do with the Kindle

That there *are* other things you can do with a Kindle is part of why it's never going to be mainstream.

Perhaps you'd care to explain how making a device more generally useful makes it less desirable...

--
Mike
_I Eat Vegetarians: Cows are vegetarians, aren't they?_ ISBN: 978-0-615-22203-5 (kindle), 978-0-9841042-1-5 (.pdf) 978-0-9841042-0-8 (mobi)


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