Amazon's attitude towards its Kindle device customers is one of lofty disregard.
Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
But they appear to exult in dashing the hopes of their customers, or at the very least they don't care about them at all. They've doubled down on no-key devices with stupid pens, pointless and poorly-implemented color, and tiny or excessively large form factors with little in between. It's kind of crazy just how much they don't seem to care.
The subtext of the article indicates that the problem isn't discontinuing support alone, but discontinuing support without offering those customers a reasonable replacement for their old devices that had keys and buttons. (Even if it's just a couple of buttons.)
I have a Kindle which I think is surviving this purge. But after looking at alternatives like the Kobo, I wondered where people got their books?
Ofc there's the high seas, but I'd quite like to support the authors and I can afford ~£10 for a book now and then. But are there any stores as good/convenient as the Amazon one?
I was looking for a good rationalization to leave the ecosystem, one-click e-books is great and having old device that I can take anywhere not caring about it getting beaten up even more was another major advantage.
Removing some old book I had was the first major red flag.
The first time I got an ad on mine I did that and switched to the Calibre + z-library workflow. It's been most of a decade since.
It's like people have to be taught the same lesson about SAAS over and over and over again. Like what did they expect, to not get rug pulled eventually? Crazy. You own your shit or you don't. Simple as.
>Amazon said it had supported the devices for 14 years or more and could not keep doing so indefinitely. "Technology has come a long way in that time," said a spokesperson.
Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?
Having used an early kindle and a recent kindle, they are incredibly similar. One of the main innovations of the new models appears to be adverts you have to pay to get rid of.
Also gradually phasing out support of formats like mobi, in such subtle ways that if you open a mobi file you cannot go back to the library, but have to cold-reboot your device...
My current kindle is my third one, and is the last. I will never ever pay for a kindle to Amazon, due to its user hostility.
Oh, and also you cannot move ebooks between accounts, even not with a lot of friction, eg. support tickets, which would be a fair way to game piracy and unwanted lending, which was some inconvinience for me in a situation. Not a huge monetary loss for me, rather a reminder that when you pay to Amazon (or Valve, or any other contemporary DRM-burdened vendor) you are only leasing...
My kindle from 2012 used to have ads you needed to pay for to get rid of. It was sold as separate product with or without ads at a time. I had one with ads.
I keep it offline in airplane mode permanently from 2016 and haven't seen a single ad in a long long time.
That's what your nose is for. (I'm quite skilled at advancing or going back by gently tapping the kindle against my face. It helps that I'm very nearsighted so it's kind of already there)
My local library has some dead tree format books with a 500 year support window. Or dead animal or dead reed format books with more like a 2000-year support window.
Crap like this is why I 1.) export my Kindle books to plain PDF 2.) use a Nook Simple Touch. They work perfectly well 100% offline and are CHEAP now.
Primarily use two of these for a prepper book cache. (Two is one and one is none.) The battery lasts about a month on low cost chargers, and a pair of 32GB SD cards holds my entire collection. (A redundant pair since two is one.) Whole thing sits in an EMP bag in the bugout bag of my car, so I always have my library everywhere I go.
Exporting to PDF used to be pretty straightforward; the newest encryption is a lot harder to bypass but is still possible:
Every time they announce new Kindle products, half of the comments are like "I hope they have buttons," "I hope they bring back the Oasis," etc.
But they appear to exult in dashing the hopes of their customers, or at the very least they don't care about them at all. They've doubled down on no-key devices with stupid pens, pointless and poorly-implemented color, and tiny or excessively large form factors with little in between. It's kind of crazy just how much they don't seem to care.
The subtext of the article indicates that the problem isn't discontinuing support alone, but discontinuing support without offering those customers a reasonable replacement for their old devices that had keys and buttons. (Even if it's just a couple of buttons.)
Ofc there's the high seas, but I'd quite like to support the authors and I can afford ~£10 for a book now and then. But are there any stores as good/convenient as the Amazon one?
https://www.xteink.com/products/xteink-x4
Removing some old book I had was the first major red flag.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331
It's like people have to be taught the same lesson about SAAS over and over and over again. Like what did they expect, to not get rug pulled eventually? Crazy. You own your shit or you don't. Simple as.
Wasn't the original concept of the Kindle that it shouldn't need to be replaced by newer models?
What is discontinued is integration with Amazon account. Which seems fair to me to be fair.
Its clock no longer tells correct time; but it’s fine, a book doesn’t have to do that - and I have a watch.
My current kindle is my third one, and is the last. I will never ever pay for a kindle to Amazon, due to its user hostility.
Oh, and also you cannot move ebooks between accounts, even not with a lot of friction, eg. support tickets, which would be a fair way to game piracy and unwanted lending, which was some inconvinience for me in a situation. Not a huge monetary loss for me, rather a reminder that when you pay to Amazon (or Valve, or any other contemporary DRM-burdened vendor) you are only leasing...
I keep it offline in airplane mode permanently from 2016 and haven't seen a single ad in a long long time.
The ads are only shown while it's off, they're static black and white images, and 99% of the time they're for books. Totally unobjectionable.
If they were in the actual UI and for stuff like cars and perfume I might mind, but they aren't so I never cared.
You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.
Planned obsolescence is always bad.
Turn the page
Primarily use two of these for a prepper book cache. (Two is one and one is none.) The battery lasts about a month on low cost chargers, and a pair of 32GB SD cards holds my entire collection. (A redundant pair since two is one.) Whole thing sits in an EMP bag in the bugout bag of my car, so I always have my library everywhere I go.
Exporting to PDF used to be pretty straightforward; the newest encryption is a lot harder to bypass but is still possible:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/comments/1q1uza4/successful...