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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 lef

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?
  - dageshi 6y ago
    I'm no expert on the history of audiobooks, but I get the impression they used to be really really expensive? Like double or even treble a hardback. Amazon seems to have gained its dominance by making them cheaper to the point where people can really afford them as an alternative to hard/paperbacks. For all the hatred of amazon in this thread, I suspect the audiobook market would be a fraction of what it is now without them or someone who looks exactly like them.
    - danShumway 6y ago
      All monopolies start out by offering decent services. Amazon itself got popular by offering good prices and product selections. That doesn't mean modern concerns about how they treat their workers/drivers should be dismissed, it doesn't mean current concerns about how they screen for imposter sellers and group projects together aren't valid. It doesn't mean that their usage of 3rd-party seller data to push their own product development isn't anticompetitive. Even still, I doubt you'd see as much hatred of amazon in this thread if it wasn't for their DRM, lack of Linux/OS support, and some of their more arduous publisher terms (not allowing publishers to sell without DRM, forcing exclusives, etc). I don't think that stuff has anything to do with growing the market. I don't think taking away user rights is an essential part of offering cheaper prices, and I especially don't think that having cheap prices somehow excuses their other anticompetitive behavior. Should we stop criticizing Spotify's co-opting of the podcast movement just because they popularized music streaming and managed to get musicians to accept much worse terms for payouts? Should we stop criticizing Netflix's push for DRM standards on the web just because they started out with a great DVD rental service?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    That's a really trivial and unfair dismissal of a honestly presented comment. That's a net negative contribution to this discussion. Edit: and now you've deleted your comment, abawany.
    - abawany 6y ago
      When you corrected your spelling mistake ('connivance'), my comment became useless so I removed it. You are dismissing other's concerns about walled gardens so it seems a bit hypocritical to call my contribution negative.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        In was worded in an abusive way. And spelling isn't material to any argument.
        abawany 6y ago
        My comment as I recall was: "You probably meant to say 'convenience' instead of 'connivance' but your misspelling perfectly captures my sentiment about Audible." I'm sorry if you thought that was worded abusively but that wasn't my intention.
        a1369209993 6y ago
        > "You probably meant to say 'convenience' instead of 'connivance' but your misspelling perfectly captures my sentiment about Audible." I didn't see the original, but that wording is absolutely not abusive (except maybe to Amazon, which deserves it). Nor is it any kind of "dismissal of a honestly presented comment", "trivial and unfair" or otherwise. > my sentiment about Audible. So that would be "The value with the lock-in (connivance, price) makes it worthwhile to Amazon."? Sounds about right.

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?
- dageshi 6y ago
  I'm no expert on the history of audiobooks, but I get the impression they used to be really really expensive? Like double or even treble a hardback. Amazon seems to have gained its dominance by making them cheaper to the point where people can really afford them as an alternative to hard/paperbacks. For all the hatred of amazon in this thread, I suspect the audiobook market would be a fraction of what it is now without them or someone who looks exactly like them.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    All monopolies start out by offering decent services. Amazon itself got popular by offering good prices and product selections. That doesn't mean modern concerns about how they treat their workers/drivers should be dismissed, it doesn't mean current concerns about how they screen for imposter sellers and group projects together aren't valid. It doesn't mean that their usage of 3rd-party seller data to push their own product development isn't anticompetitive. Even still, I doubt you'd see as much hatred of amazon in this thread if it wasn't for their DRM, lack of Linux/OS support, and some of their more arduous publisher terms (not allowing publishers to sell without DRM, forcing exclusives, etc). I don't think that stuff has anything to do with growing the market. I don't think taking away user rights is an essential part of offering cheaper prices, and I especially don't think that having cheap prices somehow excuses their other anticompetitive behavior. Should we stop criticizing Spotify's co-opting of the podcast movement just because they popularized music streaming and managed to get musicians to accept much worse terms for payouts? Should we stop criticizing Netflix's push for DRM standards on the web just because they started out with a great DVD rental service?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  That's a really trivial and unfair dismissal of a honestly presented comment. That's a net negative contribution to this discussion. Edit: and now you've deleted your comment, abawany.
  - abawany 6y ago
    When you corrected your spelling mistake ('connivance'), my comment became useless so I removed it. You are dismissing other's concerns about walled gardens so it seems a bit hypocritical to call my contribution negative.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      In was worded in an abusive way. And spelling isn't material to any argument.
      - abawany 6y ago
        My comment as I recall was: "You probably meant to say 'convenience' instead of 'connivance' but your misspelling perfectly captures my sentiment about Audible." I'm sorry if you thought that was worded abusively but that wasn't my intention.
        a1369209993 6y ago
        > "You probably meant to say 'convenience' instead of 'connivance' but your misspelling perfectly captures my sentiment about Audible." I didn't see the original, but that wording is absolutely not abusive (except maybe to Amazon, which deserves it). Nor is it any kind of "dismissal of a honestly presented comment", "trivial and unfair" or otherwise. > my sentiment about Audible. So that would be "The value with the lock-in (connivance, price) makes it worthwhile to Amazon."? Sounds about right.