5 ms·

Considering that kindle customers do not own the books they buy, Amazon's kindle will be Free as free first dose of cocaine.

jrockway 17y ago
Just like with libraries? I buy books for a few hours of enjoyment. After I've read them, they just sit on a shelf and collect dust. Because most people are like this, the Kindle is not a poor value proposition. Even if you were only allowed to read the book exactly once, it would still be a better value (in terms of hours of time spent per dollar spent) than many things, like seeing a movie. Everyone hates DRM, but everyone knows that DRM only lasts a few years for a given industry. Eventually the publishers realize that DRM is being used to lock them into a distributor, and they hate that more than "piracy". It happened with music, and it's starting to happen to books. When people start getting arrested for sharing books with their lovers, then you can link to "The Right To Read" and say "I told you so". In the mean time, consider DRM as a bootstrap that will eventually go away.
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  I mostly agree with you, but with one exception: I'm a bit of a history buff, and I'm not altogether looking forward to a future where all of the history texts are alterable, and nobody owns previous copies.
  - weaksauce 17y ago
    I wonder if this will increase the number of people that sha1 the books to see if it has been tampered. maybe have a distributed system that votes for the correct hash. Or you could have a canonical repository like the library of congress.
    - msg 17y ago
      Or you could have a canonical repository like the Ministry of Truth. Fixed that for you.
  - whughes 17y ago
    History texts for what? Past histories will remain in print form, and new revisions to them will still be published in journals and such. History from now on is going to be radically changed by the giant primary source called the Internet and its offspring. I think you're looking at it on too small a scale.
- jbarciauskas 17y ago
  I buy books to put them on my shelf so that other people can see how smart I am. Only half joking - my bookshelf does start a lot of conversations, and I often lend out books to friends. It's going to be a long time before I'm going to plunk down cash for electronic-only versions of books. I do however often choose technical books that come with a PDF version free over other books on the same subject (e.g., Manning Publications)
- alaithea 17y ago
  Not just like with libraries. Library books are free. As an avid library goer, I'm tempted by the Kindle, but I don't actually want one. I get 95% of my books from the library, so for people like me, a Kindle is just a way to spend money more easily and more often.
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    Library books are free. That's not even close to true. The actual case is just that the costs of library books are (almost) completely externalized.
callahad 17y ago
That's only the case for content purchased through the Kindle store. You're completely free to put content from other sources on the device, and Amazon actually goes to great lengths to make this as simple as possible: Beyond appearing as a USB mass storage device, every Kindle has a unique email address. Send a document to that address and it's instantly delivered over "whispernet" to the device.

jrockway 17y ago

Just like with libraries? I buy books for a few hours of enjoyment. After I've read them, they just sit on a shelf and collect dust. Because most people are like this, the Kindle is not a poor value proposition. Even if you were only allowed to read the book exactly once, it would still be a better value (in terms of hours of time spent per dollar spent) than many things, like seeing a movie. Everyone hates DRM, but everyone knows that DRM only lasts a few years for a given industry. Eventually the publishers realize that DRM is being used to lock them into a distributor, and they hate that more than "piracy". It happened with music, and it's starting to happen to books. When people start getting arrested for sharing books with their lovers, then you can link to "The Right To Read" and say "I told you so". In the mean time, consider DRM as a bootstrap that will eventually go away.

thaumaturgy 17y ago
I mostly agree with you, but with one exception: I'm a bit of a history buff, and I'm not altogether looking forward to a future where all of the history texts are alterable, and nobody owns previous copies.
- weaksauce 17y ago
  I wonder if this will increase the number of people that sha1 the books to see if it has been tampered. maybe have a distributed system that votes for the correct hash. Or you could have a canonical repository like the library of congress.
  - msg 17y ago
    Or you could have a canonical repository like the Ministry of Truth. Fixed that for you.
- whughes 17y ago
  History texts for what? Past histories will remain in print form, and new revisions to them will still be published in journals and such. History from now on is going to be radically changed by the giant primary source called the Internet and its offspring. I think you're looking at it on too small a scale.
jbarciauskas 17y ago
I buy books to put them on my shelf so that other people can see how smart I am. Only half joking - my bookshelf does start a lot of conversations, and I often lend out books to friends. It's going to be a long time before I'm going to plunk down cash for electronic-only versions of books. I do however often choose technical books that come with a PDF version free over other books on the same subject (e.g., Manning Publications)
alaithea 17y ago
Not just like with libraries. Library books are free. As an avid library goer, I'm tempted by the Kindle, but I don't actually want one. I get 95% of my books from the library, so for people like me, a Kindle is just a way to spend money more easily and more often.
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  Library books are free. That's not even close to true. The actual case is just that the costs of library books are (almost) completely externalized.

callahad 17y ago

That's only the case for content purchased through the Kindle store. You're completely free to put content from other sources on the device, and Amazon actually goes to great lengths to make this as simple as possible: Beyond appearing as a USB mass storage device, every Kindle has a unique email address. Send a document to that address and it's instantly delivered over "whispernet" to the device.