7 ms·

> Aren't all stores a 'walled garden'? I'd call them "gardens". I'd called them "walled" if they use DRM and force you to consume it in their garden.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> if they use DRM and force you to consume it in their garden Like a restaurant without a takeaway service? How evil.
- choward 6y ago
  Not even close to being the same at all. For starters, I'm sure they'll give you a togo box if you don't finish unless it's a buffet. When you "buy" a book you should be able to read it whenever you want forever and not rely on the company you bought it from not going out of business. Or they may add ads to the app you HAVE to use to consume it. With food, you're paying for that one experience of eating the food. It's not like the company can take that away from you in the future. It's not supposed to last forever. It's one and done.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > I'm sure they'll give you a togo box if you don't finish In the UK restaurants don’t do this so your surety is misplaced. > When you "buy" a book you should be able to read it whenever you want forever and not rely on the company you bought it from not going out of business. That’s what you care about. What I care about is most convenient access now. Why is your priority the true one and mine a result of abuse?
    - a1369209993 6y ago
      > What I care about is most convenient access now. Lack of DRM is most convenient. (Unless corporate abuse has made it impossible to use [whichever format is most convenient] without applying DRM, obviously.)
- rbecker 6y ago
  Or like a grocery store that'll send security guards into your home to prevent you from eating their bread with cheese you bought elsewhere. Since, you know, DRM is there to actively prevent you from doing something, so comparing it with just passively not offering a service is more than a little dishonest.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > Or like a grocery store that'll send security guards into your home to prevent you from eating their bread with cheese you bought elsewhere If I agree to that, and it's worth it to me... what's your problem with that?
    - abawany 6y ago
      Because it just doesn't affect you: Audible has sucked the oxygen out of the room by virtue of its Amazon leverage so most people can't even name an alternative. Eventually alternatives die and all of us unwillingly get put in the jail that you wish to be in. This is why the comments against your capitulation are strong.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        > Audible has sucked the oxygen out of the room I don’t think this is true. In fact I people are listening to more books than before and spending more on them than before. Audible are injecting oxygen into the room! > In 2020, Deloitte predicts, the global audiobook market will grow by 25 percent to US$3.5 billion. That’s what we should really care about - books read. And money spent is great as well. People here forget what books are for - reading. They aren’t supposed to be vehicles for copyright activism.
        abawany 6y ago
        What is your fear here for comments opposing Audible's hegemony? This discussion and your other discussions have devolved into "yes it does!" and "no it doesn't!". Could you just explain why Audible and its scheme needs to be the only one standing and everyone here should just not express any concern about it? Edit0: BTW, no one has forgotten what books are for. It is Audible with its restrictions that has made reading (or listening) into a hindrance. Are you able to accept that this is my experience/opinion?
- danShumway 6y ago
  A) restaurant meals are consumable, they're not permanent assets. B) when was the last time you went to a restaurant that wouldn't let you box whatever was left of your meal? C) you're arguing elsewhere that Audible is actually awesome because it makes your life better by allowing you to do things like manage your entire library in one place that syncs to all of your devices. How can you understand that benefit, but simultaneously not understand the practical lock-in effect of Amazon forcing you to abandon every audiobook you ever purchased just because you switched to a new service? The restaurant analogy is terrible. It's more like imagining that your JC Penny clothes could only be worn with other JC Penny clothes, and if you ever wanted to shop at Target you'd need to have two wardrobes, one for each store, or you'd be committing a felony. I'm going to step out and say that yes, that kind of behavior is anti-competitive, anti-consumer, and to the extent that an amoral market can be evil, it's evil.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    A) But that’s how I read books - I read and then I’m done. Am I reading wrong? B) Last week. You can’t take leftovers home where I live it’s considered gross. C) I don’t mind the lock-in because the value with it (convenience, price) makes it worthwhile. People here can’t accept I value convenience over abstract rights.
    - danShumway 6y ago
      I suppose, but you can excuse pretty much anything that way. "This restaurant serves spoiled eggs." "But I don't eat eggs, so that doesn't matter." > I value convenience over abstract rights. They're not abstract rights, Amazon in the real world has taken over pretty much the entire audiobook market and used their market dominance to force publishers and writers to bend to increasingly unfair terms. The lock-in isn't abstract, I've talked to people in the real world who are interested in getting other readers but feel like they can't because they'd lose their existing library. Real people are being prevented from moving services in the real world. You might not care about those rights, and you might not care about how they influence how the market you participate in evolves over time and what innovations from that market you get to access. But even if you don't care about that stuff, all of it is real and has real consequences. To say they're abstract is an even stranger position for you to take: "This restaurant serves spoiled eggs." "The eggs aren't on my plate, so they're entirely theoretical." > You can’t take leftovers home where I live it’s considered gross. Minor sidenote, but you're missing out. One of the best parts of eating out is that you have some leftovers for supper that night and don't need to cook. I highly recommend it if you've never tried it before. Also consider: it may be culturally unacceptable to carry leftovers home, but would you be arrested if you tried to? Would it be a federal offense?
- eldridgea 6y ago
  More like a bookstore that won't let you leave with your books. So research library rules, but retail-ownership pricing.
- gwicks56 6y ago
  Exactly like that. And 10 years later they can come and extract the calories from you against your will.
  - Igelau 6y ago
    You mean it comes with free lipo when I'm older? In that case I'll take two.
valuearb 6y ago
If DRM enables more authors to earn reasonable amounts from their Audiobooks, isn’t that a good thing? The world in which your life’s work can easily be duplicated millions of times isn’t necessarily conducive to the creation of new art.
- LanceH 6y ago
  The complaint about DRM is that a company may suddenly stop supporting your license for the book. You don't own anything and are dependent on their goodwill. And to be clear, there are numerous ways short of Amazon going under that could result in a reader/listener no longer having access to their content. Say your phone provider stops allowing the Audible app on your phone, you can no longer use your content. To many, once a book is purchased, they should be able to enjoy it the way they want and DRM either prevents that or threatens to prevent that for your entire library. You can expect that as a user you'll have little to no recourse should that happen. There is also the discontent that DRM isn't necessarily being used to ensure payment, but being used to gouge the buyers. Less so than it was, but a lot of ebooks were costing more than their physical counterparts because there was no used/library channel for competition.
  - Noos 6y ago
    Well, that's the side effect of having the increased convenience and often dirt cheap prices the kindle ebook ecosystem gives. If you don't like it do what some of us do and just buy physical media.
    - input_sh 6y ago
      I don't buy the "Kindle is cheaper argument". I have both a Paperwhite and a Kobo reader (as well as a way of stripping DRM off of both), so I usually look up the prices on both before purchase. I'd say it's 30% chance of an ebook being cheaper on Kobo, 30% chance of an ebook being cheaper on Kindle, and 40% chance of the price being the same on both. I only remember one example of an ebook being absurdly cheaper on Kindle (like $10 compared to >$20), everything else deviates by like a dollar or two one side or the other.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> if they use DRM and force you to consume it in their garden Like a restaurant without a takeaway service? How evil.

choward 6y ago
Not even close to being the same at all. For starters, I'm sure they'll give you a togo box if you don't finish unless it's a buffet. When you "buy" a book you should be able to read it whenever you want forever and not rely on the company you bought it from not going out of business. Or they may add ads to the app you HAVE to use to consume it. With food, you're paying for that one experience of eating the food. It's not like the company can take that away from you in the future. It's not supposed to last forever. It's one and done.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > I'm sure they'll give you a togo box if you don't finish In the UK restaurants don’t do this so your surety is misplaced. > When you "buy" a book you should be able to read it whenever you want forever and not rely on the company you bought it from not going out of business. That’s what you care about. What I care about is most convenient access now. Why is your priority the true one and mine a result of abuse?
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > What I care about is most convenient access now. Lack of DRM is most convenient. (Unless corporate abuse has made it impossible to use [whichever format is most convenient] without applying DRM, obviously.)
rbecker 6y ago
Or like a grocery store that'll send security guards into your home to prevent you from eating their bread with cheese you bought elsewhere. Since, you know, DRM is there to actively prevent you from doing something, so comparing it with just passively not offering a service is more than a little dishonest.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Or like a grocery store that'll send security guards into your home to prevent you from eating their bread with cheese you bought elsewhere If I agree to that, and it's worth it to me... what's your problem with that?
  - abawany 6y ago
    Because it just doesn't affect you: Audible has sucked the oxygen out of the room by virtue of its Amazon leverage so most people can't even name an alternative. Eventually alternatives die and all of us unwillingly get put in the jail that you wish to be in. This is why the comments against your capitulation are strong.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      > Audible has sucked the oxygen out of the room I don’t think this is true. In fact I people are listening to more books than before and spending more on them than before. Audible are injecting oxygen into the room! > In 2020, Deloitte predicts, the global audiobook market will grow by 25 percent to US$3.5 billion. That’s what we should really care about - books read. And money spent is great as well. People here forget what books are for - reading. They aren’t supposed to be vehicles for copyright activism.
      - abawany 6y ago
        What is your fear here for comments opposing Audible's hegemony? This discussion and your other discussions have devolved into "yes it does!" and "no it doesn't!". Could you just explain why Audible and its scheme needs to be the only one standing and everyone here should just not express any concern about it? Edit0: BTW, no one has forgotten what books are for. It is Audible with its restrictions that has made reading (or listening) into a hindrance. Are you able to accept that this is my experience/opinion?
danShumway 6y ago
A) restaurant meals are consumable, they're not permanent assets. B) when was the last time you went to a restaurant that wouldn't let you box whatever was left of your meal? C) you're arguing elsewhere that Audible is actually awesome because it makes your life better by allowing you to do things like manage your entire library in one place that syncs to all of your devices. How can you understand that benefit, but simultaneously not understand the practical lock-in effect of Amazon forcing you to abandon every audiobook you ever purchased just because you switched to a new service? The restaurant analogy is terrible. It's more like imagining that your JC Penny clothes could only be worn with other JC Penny clothes, and if you ever wanted to shop at Target you'd need to have two wardrobes, one for each store, or you'd be committing a felony. I'm going to step out and say that yes, that kind of behavior is anti-competitive, anti-consumer, and to the extent that an amoral market can be evil, it's evil.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  A) But that’s how I read books - I read and then I’m done. Am I reading wrong? B) Last week. You can’t take leftovers home where I live it’s considered gross. C) I don’t mind the lock-in because the value with it (convenience, price) makes it worthwhile. People here can’t accept I value convenience over abstract rights.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    I suppose, but you can excuse pretty much anything that way. "This restaurant serves spoiled eggs." "But I don't eat eggs, so that doesn't matter." > I value convenience over abstract rights. They're not abstract rights, Amazon in the real world has taken over pretty much the entire audiobook market and used their market dominance to force publishers and writers to bend to increasingly unfair terms. The lock-in isn't abstract, I've talked to people in the real world who are interested in getting other readers but feel like they can't because they'd lose their existing library. Real people are being prevented from moving services in the real world. You might not care about those rights, and you might not care about how they influence how the market you participate in evolves over time and what innovations from that market you get to access. But even if you don't care about that stuff, all of it is real and has real consequences. To say they're abstract is an even stranger position for you to take: "This restaurant serves spoiled eggs." "The eggs aren't on my plate, so they're entirely theoretical." > You can’t take leftovers home where I live it’s considered gross. Minor sidenote, but you're missing out. One of the best parts of eating out is that you have some leftovers for supper that night and don't need to cook. I highly recommend it if you've never tried it before. Also consider: it may be culturally unacceptable to carry leftovers home, but would you be arrested if you tried to? Would it be a federal offense?
eldridgea 6y ago
More like a bookstore that won't let you leave with your books. So research library rules, but retail-ownership pricing.
gwicks56 6y ago
Exactly like that. And 10 years later they can come and extract the calories from you against your will.
- Igelau 6y ago
  You mean it comes with free lipo when I'm older? In that case I'll take two.

valuearb 6y ago

If DRM enables more authors to earn reasonable amounts from their Audiobooks, isn’t that a good thing? The world in which your life’s work can easily be duplicated millions of times isn’t necessarily conducive to the creation of new art.

LanceH 6y ago
The complaint about DRM is that a company may suddenly stop supporting your license for the book. You don't own anything and are dependent on their goodwill. And to be clear, there are numerous ways short of Amazon going under that could result in a reader/listener no longer having access to their content. Say your phone provider stops allowing the Audible app on your phone, you can no longer use your content. To many, once a book is purchased, they should be able to enjoy it the way they want and DRM either prevents that or threatens to prevent that for your entire library. You can expect that as a user you'll have little to no recourse should that happen. There is also the discontent that DRM isn't necessarily being used to ensure payment, but being used to gouge the buyers. Less so than it was, but a lot of ebooks were costing more than their physical counterparts because there was no used/library channel for competition.
- Noos 6y ago
  Well, that's the side effect of having the increased convenience and often dirt cheap prices the kindle ebook ecosystem gives. If you don't like it do what some of us do and just buy physical media.
  - input_sh 6y ago
    I don't buy the "Kindle is cheaper argument". I have both a Paperwhite and a Kobo reader (as well as a way of stripping DRM off of both), so I usually look up the prices on both before purchase. I'd say it's 30% chance of an ebook being cheaper on Kobo, 30% chance of an ebook being cheaper on Kindle, and 40% chance of the price being the same on both. I only remember one example of an ebook being absurdly cheaper on Kindle (like $10 compared to >$20), everything else deviates by like a dollar or two one side or the other.