The Wi-Fi broke on my Kindle Paperwhite years ago, and I have only one micro-B cable left that will connect to it.
Amazon is to stop supporting older Kindle models leaving longtime ebook fans unable to access new content from the Kindle store.Devices released during or before 2012 will no longer receive updates from 20 May, affecting owners of older Kindles, including the earliest models such as the Touch and some Fire tablets. It is thought that 2m e-readers could be affected.
Users will still be able to read ebooks they have downloaded, and their accounts and their Kindle library will remain accessible on mobile and desktop apps. Active users have been offered discounts to help “transition to newer devices”. Amazon said performing a factory reset on affected Kindles would make them unusable.
Disappointed users have vented their frustration online, including in comments on The Verge, accusing Amazon of “causing waste at a large scale” and saying their devices would be reduced to a paperweight despite still working
... Show more...The Wi-Fi broke on my Kindle Paperwhite years ago, and I have only one micro-B cable left that will connect to it.
Amazon is to stop supporting older Kindle models leaving longtime ebook fans unable to access new content from the Kindle store.Devices released during or before 2012 will no longer receive updates from 20 May, affecting owners of older Kindles, including the earliest models such as the Touch and some Fire tablets. It is thought that 2m e-readers could be affected.
Users will still be able to read ebooks they have downloaded, and their accounts and their Kindle library will remain accessible on mobile and desktop apps. Active users have been offered discounts to help “transition to newer devices”. Amazon said performing a factory reset on affected Kindles would make them unusable.
Disappointed users have vented their frustration online, including in comments on The Verge, accusing Amazon of “causing waste at a large scale” and saying their devices would be reduced to a paperweight despite still working.
One wonders whether these old devices just don't have enough telemetry built in for Amazon's liking.
definitemaybe
in reply to Powderhorn • • •I think it's likely more about DRM.
Old Kindles are incompatible with Amazon's .kfx format ebooks and newer, stronger DRM. With an old Kindle, it was trivially easy to rip Kindle books to retail-quality epubs.
With these devices ceasing to work with Kindle books starting next month, that loophole closes.
Also, old Kindles will continue to work with already-downloaded Kindle books and DRM-free books, but new files can only be added by USB cable, not using Amazon's services.
The newer DRM also has working exploits, but it's not nearly as easy, and they've indirectly hinted that one of the remaining methods may be closing soon. But, fundamentally, static media DRM (books, music, movies) is inherently beatable; the full content gets displayed to the user, so it can be intercepted and ripped. Worst case, someone will make a screen-capture app that uses perfect OCR to recreate the book. That's already a solved problem, basically, it's j
... Show more...I think it's likely more about DRM.
Old Kindles are incompatible with Amazon's .kfx format ebooks and newer, stronger DRM. With an old Kindle, it was trivially easy to rip Kindle books to retail-quality epubs.
With these devices ceasing to work with Kindle books starting next month, that loophole closes.
Also, old Kindles will continue to work with already-downloaded Kindle books and DRM-free books, but new files can only be added by USB cable, not using Amazon's services.
The newer DRM also has working exploits, but it's not nearly as easy, and they've indirectly hinted that one of the remaining methods may be closing soon. But, fundamentally, static media DRM (books, music, movies) is inherently beatable; the full content gets displayed to the user, so it can be intercepted and ripped. Worst case, someone will make a screen-capture app that uses perfect OCR to recreate the book. That's already a solved problem, basically, it's just horribly inefficient.
So Amazon will continue to play whack-a-mole, turning millions of devices into e-waste, without even causing a blip for book pirates and those needing format shifting for accessibility.
Powderhorn
in reply to definitemaybe • • •Ebooks are to me like music and movies/TV shows. I pirate first, and if I like it, I go back and pay. But the critical thing to remember is that discovery is the gateway. They want to act like it's the '90s, and you have to pay $20 for a CD to find out if anything but the one track played on the radio was any good.
Must suck that people know how to try something on for size before making a purchase. That used to be common at things called "shopping malls."
Powderhorn
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Just as a folo, consider the difference between fast food and a full-service restaurant. People will head to Taco Bell for a known quantity and pay before the food is served. In a restaurant setting, being expected to pay before your meal arrives will make customers leave.
Amazon (and other companies) want you to think of entertainment like going to a movie, where you could waste $30 on a shitty production. I don't care to do that at home.
Elvith Ma'for
in reply to definitemaybe • • •Heh, yes. The encryption key for their old DRM was derivated from the Kindle's serial number. Wanted to crack your library? Go to the webpage, download them all there (yes, that's now blocked, too) open them all in calibre and use a plugin to deactivate the DRM (trivially to find back then). Enter your serial number and you've freed your whole library.
Bazell
in reply to Powderhorn • • •like this
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ComradeMiao
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Powderhorn
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smeg
in reply to Powderhorn • • •like this
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Powderhorn
in reply to smeg • • •smeg
in reply to Powderhorn • • •ComradeMiao
in reply to smeg • • •smeg
in reply to ComradeMiao • • •ComradeMiao
in reply to smeg • • •smeg
in reply to ComradeMiao • • •ComradeMiao
in reply to smeg • • •smeg
in reply to ComradeMiao • • •ComradeMiao
in reply to smeg • • •definitemaybe
in reply to Powderhorn • • •ɔiƚoxɘup
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Is the simplest solution here not just to leave the ecosystem entirely?
I had a Kindle type device a long time ago and I decided to get rid of it in favor of something that is much more flexible and can actually handle whatever kind of book I want to put on it.
Cool Reader.
Works on win, *nix, and Android. Probably also Mac, maybe ios
definitemaybe
in reply to ɔiƚoxɘup • • •The challenge is the monopolistic death grip Amazon has on self publishing.
For many genres, authors get almost all of their income from Kindle Unlimited. KU requires exclusivity. The result is entire genres of books that are almost entirely Kindle exclusive.
So, the only real options for readers of these genes is either Kindle Unlimited (or buying on Kindle, I suppose) or piracy.
Some authors release serialized content on Patreon or a similar paid or free platform, but those platforms often only get first drafts, are difficult to navigate to get full books, and only cover a subset of authors anyway. And books get "stubbed", which means everything past the 10% mark gets deleted to comply with Amazon exclusivity, so this is only even an option if you read the whole thing as it is being written. (FWIW, it's also crazy expensive if you want to support authors; it can easily cost hundreds of dollars monthly with all the subscriptions.)
So, if you want authors to get paid for their work, then, realistically, you're stuck using Kindle.
It s
... Show more...The challenge is the monopolistic death grip Amazon has on self publishing.
For many genres, authors get almost all of their income from Kindle Unlimited. KU requires exclusivity. The result is entire genres of books that are almost entirely Kindle exclusive.
So, the only real options for readers of these genes is either Kindle Unlimited (or buying on Kindle, I suppose) or piracy.
Some authors release serialized content on Patreon or a similar paid or free platform, but those platforms often only get first drafts, are difficult to navigate to get full books, and only cover a subset of authors anyway. And books get "stubbed", which means everything past the 10% mark gets deleted to comply with Amazon exclusivity, so this is only even an option if you read the whole thing as it is being written. (FWIW, it's also crazy expensive if you want to support authors; it can easily cost hundreds of dollars monthly with all the subscriptions.)
So, if you want authors to get paid for their work, then, realistically, you're stuck using Kindle.
It sucks, but that's the reality until regulators prevent Amazon from forcing exclusivity for inclusion in the KU program.
ɔiƚoxɘup
in reply to definitemaybe • • •definitemaybe
in reply to ɔiƚoxɘup • • •Totally agreed, but authors are straight fucked if they try. Popular authors in my genre of choice have tried, and they all say it was a financial disaster for them, and that they can't afford to be a full time author without KU income. And readers will follow where authors are, since those are the books they want to read.
Amazon's monopoly on self publishing is probably illegal, but until regulators notice, network effects and anticompetitive practices from Amazon reinforce their monopoly.
Like, my options are, literally:
Authors have also said that they're so dependent on The Algorithm, that pirating their books hits them double, from the lost revenue and from the reduced visibility. So that's a double dick move.
I hate it, but here we are.
At least I read so much that Amazon pays authors like 10× what I pay to subscribe, so that's pretty cool. (~300-400 books/year adds up to a
... Show more...Totally agreed, but authors are straight fucked if they try. Popular authors in my genre of choice have tried, and they all say it was a financial disaster for them, and that they can't afford to be a full time author without KU income. And readers will follow where authors are, since those are the books they want to read.
Amazon's monopoly on self publishing is probably illegal, but until regulators notice, network effects and anticompetitive practices from Amazon reinforce their monopoly.
Like, my options are, literally:
Authors have also said that they're so dependent on The Algorithm, that pirating their books hits them double, from the lost revenue and from the reduced visibility. So that's a double dick move.
I hate it, but here we are.
At least I read so much that Amazon pays authors like 10× what I pay to subscribe, so that's pretty cool. (~300-400 books/year adds up to a lot of KENP pages!) And I'm not paying $3-5K/year for books to buy them all, sorry. I can't afford that!
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ɔiƚoxɘup
in reply to definitemaybe • • •SaltySalamander
in reply to ɔiƚoxɘup • • •ɔiƚoxɘup
in reply to SaltySalamander • • •At this point, I feel the authors and readers need to practice collective action and boycott respectively.
Not a good time for it, but there's never a good time.
SaltySalamander
in reply to ɔiƚoxɘup • • •ɔiƚoxɘup
in reply to SaltySalamander • • •SomeRandomNoob
in reply to Powderhorn • • •eutampieri
in reply to Powderhorn • • •Powderhorn
in reply to eutampieri • • •eutampieri
in reply to Powderhorn • • •