17 ms·

Amazon shuts newspaper and magazine subscriptions for Kindle and print

346 points by thm 4y ago

noitpmeder 4y ago
Vote with your wallet people. If you don't like this move (and what it implies), then spend your dollars somewhere other than Kindle/Amazon.
mdavidn 4y ago
I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  > They don't publish in an offline format for laptops. I don't own a tablet. The conclusion to draw is that you clearly don't own your ereader either. I mean DRM does not stop those unwilling to pay. If the only achievement of DRM is to annoy the people who are willing to pay, i wonder if it likely increases rather than reduces piracy. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to be served an open epub with your magazine subscription.
  - Talanes 4y ago
    The problem isn't putting the content onto the device, that's very easy to do. The problem is that the content isn't being published in any offline-viewable formats anymore, so there's nothing to transfer.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - mdavidn 4y ago
    I'm not sure who you're preaching to. I've owned five of these devices over the past 14 years. I accept DRM for the things I read on it. If the publishers offered a DRM-laden edition that I could read offline on my laptop, I would find that to be a compelling option.
    - Talanes 4y ago
      Not to mention that DRM on the Kindle isn't a hardware-side constraint. The device will happily accept DRM-free files side-loaded onto it.
    - rendaw 4y ago
      While maybe not what GP was getting at, it sounds like you're frustrated that they don't offer a format, not that they don't offer a DRM-free version. That sounds like being frustrated your owner only gives you dry kibble.
- HyperSane 4y ago
  Can't you use the Kindle app on your laptop?
  - mdavidn 4y ago
    I don't see how this helps? If I could get The Economist in the Kindle app, then I could still get it on my Kindle.
  - lmm 4y ago
    That doesn't help, the issue is these things are no longer going to be published on the Kindle platform at all.
- iz_zi 4y ago
  Why haven’t you invested in a open source alternative that doesn’t limit your choices?
  - mdavidn 4y ago
    What would an "open source alternative" to The Economist look like exactly?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - iz_zi 4y ago
      I meant the e reader, not the economist, to clarify.
      - iz_zi 4y ago
        Also there are many open source e readers, that include e ink technology too. Amazon tried but idk something’s off.. smells like Microsoft… a bit if you ask me :^)
      - BossingAround 4y ago
        Ah yes, the DRM that is solved by buying a device which does not support said DRM.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - daveoc64 4y ago
    You've not understood the problem. The problem is not the devices that support DRM. Many ereaders support some form of DRM, but that doesn't stop you reading both free and paid content without DRM. The problem is that the content (Newspapers/Magazine) is not made available via a suitable medium to continue reading it on an ereader.
- mesh 4y ago
  fyi, if you have a subscription to the Economist, you can read each edition offline via their mobile app. Available every Thursday. You can also listen to it, but that doesnt work offline.
  - lasr_velocirptr 4y ago
    It does work offline. I don't remember the exact steps on how to do it. Basically, you can get an rss feed with credentials imported into podcast app of your choice and just download the episode before going offline. I prefer this approach since 1) It works offline 2) I can use podcast player of my choice with much better UX than the economist app
    - mesh 4y ago
      Ahh, you are saying the Economists app just uses RSS behind the scenes? Why didn't I think of that!?! This actually solves real problems for me as I have to often drive through areas where I have no coverage, and I listen to the economist (much to the chagrin of my wife who is riding with me). Thanks! edit: Found the info, its actually on the Economists site (looks like you have to login): https://www.economist.com/audio-edition https://www.economist.com/audio-edition
      - lasr_velocirptr 4y ago
        Welcome! Yup. That’s the link. You can just log in there if you have subscription and grab the rss url It will look like https://www.economist.com/audio-edition-podcast/<auth_token>/index.xml https://www.economist.com/audio-edition-podcast/<auth_token>... You can paste that into a podcast app of your choice. I use pocket casts on iOS which works with the above url for sure
- Sunspark 4y ago
  Did you know that airplanes have power outlets at foot level, sometimes USB ports higher up? You could simply bring your phone charger with you on the plane..
  - kube-system 4y ago
    This varies by configuration. Some aircraft and airlines do not. Only one out of the last 25 or so flights I’ve been on have an outlet. For example, Southwest is one of the worlds largest airlines and didn’t have outlets on any of its 700+ airplanes. (Neither AC nor USB) They just announced they will start ordering jets with USB ports starting this year. Also it is fairly common for short haul or regional jets to lack power outlets as well.
    - Sunspark 4y ago
      Surprising to hear that such a large airline wouldn't have power outlets in 2023 but perhaps it makes sense, because Southwest doesn't really do "long flights". Good info for fliers to be aware of. For Southwest and short haul fliers, I would then recommend an USB battery bank. They come in large capacities now which would cover several full charges.
  - gnicholas 4y ago
    I no longer have USB-A, which is the only USB receptacle I’ve ever seen on a plane.
    - rationalist 4y ago
      They make USB-A to USB-C adapters.
      - gnicholas 4y ago
        True, but if I'm traveling I'm not likely to bring a second phone charger cable just for this, especially because they can't charge as fast as USB-C cables. I bring a USB-C brick for my computer and USB-C to lightning cable for my iPhone.
- cheeze 4y ago
  Do people not fly with a USB battery on trips these days?
- thazework 4y ago
  For the Economist you should be able to download offline editions through the app- https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/Whats-included-in-The-Economist-app https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/Whats-included-in-...
  - chaorace 4y ago
    Is it really the same experience, though? In newsstand publications, you can swipe up/down to skip articles and there's a special 2-pane ToC that lets you navigate by sections. I'm not even sure if the epub format has the capability to provide magazine-specific integrations like these.
- damontal 4y ago
  You can use Calibre to download the Economist each week and send it to your kindle.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    Sure, but I wish I didn't have to jump through these hoops.
- robk 4y ago
  Calibre from command line + email to Kindle works fine if you have any kind of machine that's online (or even a free tier Oracle VPS)
mrwh 4y ago
I had to read the email I got about this several times because it didn't seem to make sense. Hang on, my New York Times subscription is going to end in September and then... that's it? The Kindle is wonderful for reading newspapers on, and now - what? And why? I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change. I'm also sure that I've never seen a deprecation so poorly communicated.
- somenameforme 4y ago
  From reading the article and its subsequent links, it sounds like they're trying to transition from a la carte purchases, to an all-in-one Netflix model. It's probably just a power play against publishers - swap to Kindle Unlimited and take a [presumably] smaller cut, or get nothing at all. And I'd expect it to work.
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    I've had a Kindle subscription to The Atlantic for a long time. I only look at it from time to time, but the price is low, and I don't feel guilty when I read their website for free. I couldn't quickly find out if they're even on Kindle Unlimited, and I don't read enough to make KU worth it.
- kaishiro 4y ago
  "I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change." Call me jaded, but the older I get the less faith I have that this is actually true.
  - mrwh 4y ago
    Oh to be clear, I'm including "VP responsible gets a bonus". I certainly don't mean necessarily a good reason for the rest of us!
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  Amazon doesn't want you to have a subscription to the New York Times. Amazon wants you to have a subscription to Amazon Unlimited, which would include access to the New York Times. Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles, like Amazon Unlimited books. This is very bad for big periodicals with many subscribers. Under the current model, they get a predictable amount of income and are motivated by keeping the bar high for their content, lest they lose subscribers. Under the new model, their income is entirely based on how many people pick up that issue and read it, which makes it very hard to budget. It also likely means an inevitable slide into "politician SLAMMED other politican, and you'll NEVER BELIEVE what happened next" headlines, since extra clicks are very directly your periodical's source of income. This is very good news for Amazon because it gives them far more bargaining power against publishers. Right now, if The New York Times decides that Amazon's terms favor Amazon too strongly, the Times walks, and Amazon doesn't get any more money from Times subscribers. Under this system, if the Times walks because Amazon terms favor Amazon too strongly, Amazon keeps the subscribers. This is moderately good news for customers who read a bunch of stuff on Amazon Unlimited. You now get to read whatever you like for probably around the same cost, and the stuff you naturally choose to read will end up getting a bit of money from it. Yay. This is probably moderately good news for niche, popcorn periodicals. If you have a "Werewolf Romance Weekly Short Fiction" magazine or "DIY Productivity Tip Of the Week" newsletter, you'll quite possibly make way more money by attracting idly browsing Amazon Unlimited customers than you would have been able to if you had needed to convince people to subscribe to your service.
emodendroket 4y ago
I honestly found it a much more pleasant way to read the LRB than the print version but I guess it doesn't do much good to serve a small customer base.
sohkamyung 4y ago
If you have an Overdrive Library subscription, you can try checking its magazine section to see if your library subscribes to the magazine(s) you read. Locally, my Library has Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, etc. It used to also have The Economist, but that appears to have recently vanished. For subscriptions to SFF magazines, try WeightlessBooks which offers subscription to a number of magazines [1] [1] https://weightlessbooks.com/category/magazine/ https://weightlessbooks.com/category/magazine/
- emodendroket 4y ago
  To my mind a significant part of the value proposition for the Kindle edition is you don't have to do anything and it just gets delivered to the device.
  - no_butterscotch 4y ago
    ah yea this was going to be my follow-up to the post you replied to, can I use the library app(s) (Overdrive, Libby, Axis, etc) to subscribe to new editions of these mags as they arrive at the library? ...the obvious answer from a business standpoint is of course for the magazines to not allow this, but I'm not going to remember to go look at some edition
    - sohkamyung 4y ago
      Libby does have a smart tags feature that can be used to alert you about new magazines [1]. (Libby is the library app developed by Overdrive.) > Can I be notified when new magazine issues are available? > Yes! You can use a "Notify Me" smart tag in Libby to get a notification when new issues of a magazine are available at your library. [1] https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6224.htm https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6224.htm
- lasr_velocirptr 4y ago
  I wasn't able to find any integration with overdrive in Canada when I last tried the kindle. The Kobo's here do work seamlessly with overdrive but only for ebooks though, no magazines or audiobooks
deelowe 4y ago
Why? This makes no sense. Is it really that difficult for them to maintain?
- radicaldreamer 4y ago
  Kindle in general doesn’t seem to make enough revenue to justify the engineering effort/expense. Its languished as a Bezos passion project and is being killed slowly.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    They've released 11 generations of the hardware, I think it might be doing OK.
    - radicaldreamer 4y ago
      Again, having the founder and CEO use the product every day goes a long way
Multiplayer 4y ago
FWIW the Apple News app has an incredible number of Magazines and Newspapers. News+ $10 monthly subscription is a solid deal.
- kccqzy 4y ago
  I don't need an incredible number of magazines and newspapers—I don't have time to an incredible number of magazines anyways. I only want a small handful of them that are high quality, that I can read by my bedside without a phone. Currently I'm just subscribed to The Economist via Amazon.
- marban 4y ago
  Still US-only though
- tgv 4y ago
  I has the same problem as outlined higher up: it moves money from the newspaper to the tech moloch, that can then exert control over the news. The paper will be forced to "popularize" its article stream (Did Aliens Invade the White House?) to the detriment of free news gathering and democracy, all for 30 silver coins.
  - ben7799 4y ago
    The problem is a lot of the papers and newspapers want more money for a subscription to one single magazine or newspaper than the entire Apple News+ subscription. And especially the newspapers already dropped their content quality decades ago before things like Apple News or the Kindle even existed.
- toyg 4y ago
  Apple News is the unhealthy model Amazon is trying to follow. Yet again, Apple leads the market into digital feudalism, and their fanboys are happy to lead the charge.
  - criddell 4y ago
    It’s hard to say if it’s unhealthy or not. It’s basically the same model as Spotify. Is streaming music bad for the music industry? It’s not obvious to me what the answer is. I subscribe to Apple News and the $120 / year is far, far more than I was spending on magazine subscriptions in the past.
komali2 4y ago
> Amazon hasn’t shared its exact reason for the change (the company’s statement to publishers is here), but one obvious explanation is that relatively few people are buying these subscriptions and it doesn’t make financial sense to continue to support them. Instead, Amazon wants publishers to add their content to its $9.99/month digital subscription program, Kindle Unlimited, which includes a bunch of magazines I'm pretty confident that "Amazon wants publishers to add their content to Kindle Unlimited" is the ONLY reason, and that it wouldn't matter how much revenue was generated through direct payments to publishers. This is the Way, after all, of modern platform monopoly. It's highly profitable.
- brutusurp 4y ago
  This is to consolidate offerings, and drive more money to Amazon and less to 3rd parties. Just like retail, and skills. How is this not under investigation.
- Mindwipe 4y ago
  The more obvious explanation is that a lot of the Kindle team were let go in the recent layoffs, and there now isn't enough people to run the service so everything non-essential is going to shift people over to keeping the lights on (the same is happening to the remnants of the Comixology team).
zol 4y ago
What a huge step backwards! I have an infant and am trying to move more of my content consumption including news to Kindle vs iPhone. Even at one years old she’s already forming an unhealthy relationship with smart phones given how much she sees her parents using them so I’m trying to cut down as much as possible. Interestingly, like a physical book, the kindle doesn’t get much reaction from her.
pgib 4y ago
Sure hope 2600 finds a new means of distribution. It was super convenient going to my Kindle and was a no-brainer to subscribe.
- nischalsamji 4y ago
  what will happen to the old 2600 magazines? I have been a subscriber since 2015. sad to see this going away
  - aestetix 4y ago
    2600 is working on a solution. https://twitter.com/2600/status/1634298291599859712 https://twitter.com/2600/status/1634298291599859712
btzs 4y ago
What I like about my subscription of the German weekly newspaper 'Die Zeit' is that they allow sending the mobi directly to your Send-To-Kindle-email address. Are you aware of other magazines offering that?
- joker99 4y ago
  Love that feature! Every wednesday, I get it automatically pushed to my kindle and it's fabulous! The only annoying part: it's not really optimised for a small screen and graphics are often left out, but hey, it's still great!
freetanga 4y ago
While I loved the kindle and still own one, I have since moved on an eink android reader with an isolated google account. Calibre, Overdrive, RSS, Syncthing and obsidian plus a small portable Bluetooth keyboard and I can read and take notes anywhere.
- albatrosstrophy 4y ago
  You seem to be describing an Android tablet with e-ink display. Aside from Remarkable, what else is out there worth buying?
  - freetanga 4y ago
    Supernote, Onyx have a wide range of options. Onyx relationship with Open Source licensing is… delicate. This could be a stopper for some. I had a Remarkable 1 but I feel the company is trying to be the next Apple. Everything now is subscription. Shame, as The reading experience was good, writing was excellent, software was open but clunky.
    - Galanwe 4y ago
      I used the Remarkable 1 for many years, until recently I got bored of hum converting hum my kindle library to epub to read on the remarkable. I switched to an Onyx Boox Tab X (effectively an android tablet with eink screen) and wouldn't go back. I have the Kindle reader app and can read very comfortably all my books, with the same comfort as with a Kindle device. But I can also take meeting notes, brainstorm, etc thanks to the writing capabilities similar to the Remarkable. As a bonus, I can also use it as a whiteboard in video calls.
      - blitzar 4y ago
        > $879.99 Jeepers - not sure I am going to swap my $50 kindle for that one.
      - idonotknowwhy 4y ago
        Calibre let's you convert in bulk fwiw
thazework 4y ago
Cutting off access to information in such a barbaric, offhanded way is the logical conclusion of the monopoly structure that enabled Amazon to do this without repercussion. A triple monopoly in this case Amazon/Kindle/ E ink. This will disproportionately impact those who do not live in the US/UK and rely on their subscription as the only reasonable means of timely access. I urge you to write to write to jeff@amazon.com to voice your displeasure.
- braunboffel 4y ago
  > monopoly structure that enabled Amazon to do this without repercussion What monopoly structure?
  - thazework 4y ago
    Eink: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 Combine that with Amazon's newstand dominance in Eink news delivery, and the end result is that newstand's closure leaves readers with no viable alternative.
    - braunboffel 4y ago
      Am I correct in describing above evidence as a throwaway claim on HN that was never substantiated and the throwaway account never responded to any requests for data? Do you have any other evidence that you used to form your conclusion?
moi2388 4y ago
They need to at least provide an option for other publishers to also get their content on the kindle, other than Amazon’s own subscription service. Otherwise they are using an advantage in one market (devices) to obtain an advantage in a different market (online content). The EU will eat them alive if they try that anti-competitive behaviour.
- EduardoBautista 4y ago
  They can by sending it to your Kindle email for that device. Instapaper does this to send you your saved items.
  - moi2388 4y ago
    Good to know. So it’s just a free tier that’s being removed? That seems fair enough
- thomasthetrain 4y ago
  It warrants an investigation, but maybe publishers don’t even distribute that much via Amazon devices. In this case, the competitive effects would be small.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cygnus2512 4y ago
Back in 2015, I had a opportunity to work with a group of volunteers (non-profit organization that focused on community development in rural areas of Africa) and started using Kindles loaded with newspapers and magazines from the Kindle Newsstand as part of an education program. The whole group would visit villages and set up reading stations with the Kindles. That program over time, became so successful that it attracted the attention of other non-profit organizations, as well as government officials and educators. Like the political leaders talked about these kindles for many years and still do. The use of Kindles and other digital devices in education programs has become such an effective tool to reach out to remote and underprivileged areas around the world, and the world will miss Kindle Newsstand! Thanks for playing a role in providing access to reading materials in these communities:)
- ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
  Around 2013 our university digitized their newspaper displays. Prior to the renovation, newspapers were posted daily in large vertical glass-covered display cases in the student lounge of the library (the library would buy and post two copies so all pages were face up). Tens of students at a time would slowly walk down the row of newspapers reading during their study breaks and quietly chatting while sipping on coffee. After the lounge was renovated and made into a digital media space this culture completely disappeared. I saw maybe two people use the digital kiosks to read newspapers in the subsequent year. It was heartbreaking to see the culture of community newspaper reading just collapse.
  - bibanez 4y ago
    There is one at my university. It's custom software and it breaks all the time, such a waste of energy because no one reads it!
  - SentientAtom 4y ago
    Seems there is a psychological effect at play. I imagine a social ritual of standing and reading something that is always in-focus requiring no scrolling is far more appealing.
ohgodplsno 4y ago
Reminder that Calibre [https://calibre-ebook.com/about https://calibre-ebook.com/about] has the ability to send news sources directly to your Kindle, handles news sources that require a subscription like the NYT [https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html], as well as literally any RSS feed. The only thing Calibre needs is a better UI, but that's not too different from most OSS projects. It is better than anything Amazon could ever hope to offer and as a bonus you don't give the bald man more money to destroy society.
- precompute 4y ago
  I think it's also possible to set up Calibre on a RPi (or similar) connected to the internet and have it send the azw3 files of the chosen rss feeds / newspaper feeds to a kindle via email.
- tonybologna420 4y ago
  How is the data going from Calibre to the Kindle itself? Do you need to keep Calibre running on a machine that's also using the same wifi connection as your Kindle? Does the data get sent using the Kindle email address? Somehow through a Calibre server? I was curious how this is done and couldn't find any information on the Calibre website. Thanks.
  - ohgodplsno 4y ago
    So, I haven't used my Kindle for a while, and the last one I have is a 2nd gen, but the options I know: - Plug in your Kindle on your PC, let it sync manually. Calibre has an option to know if it already synced or not, and will automatically start the news sync the moment you plug it in. - Send it through the email address. This does require Calibre to be running _somewhere_, on your desktop, your laptop, hell, even a phone port would be a great idea. There might be things on wifi, but I've sticked to these two options. There's no Calibre server to speak of.
randomint64 4y ago
As an avid reader, I'm disappointed by Amazon's decision to discontinue individual newspaper and magazine subscriptions in favor of Kindle Unlimited. This change reduces my ability to support specific publications I value, potentially leading to less variety in the market. It diminishes my sense of ownership, as content becomes more ephemeral within a subscription service. I really can't wait for competitors to shake down this predatory monopoly.
snickerbockers 4y ago
What happens to people's back catalogs of old magazines? Can they still read those or is Amazon laughing all the way to the bank? When i was a kid i lost my music collection to the yahoo music store shutting down, and it's left an impression on me even though it wasn't a very large collection. It's the reason why ive held out on buying an ereader until they drop the drm.
- cpill 4y ago
  zlibrary dude
- idonotknowwhy 4y ago
  You can use a tool called Calibre to strip DRM from your ebooks. Also let's your side load them onto a different branded device so you're not locked in. Eg. I moved from kindle to kobo and was able to bring my content with me
  - criddell 4y ago
    The DeDRM tools don’t work with lots of new books from Amazon. The days of easily stripped DRM on Amazon books seems to be coming to an end.
    - jzb 4y ago
      If you have an older Kindle, you can download the older format, I believe. I still have a Kindle DX for this.
      - criddell 4y ago
        True but it’s not ideal. You lose the typographic improvements that you get in the newer format. Still, it’s better than nothing and I’ve read that some people have purchased a used, older Kindle just to get access to the older file format.
- Aromasin 4y ago
  Get a Boox if you want a DRM-free e-reader. I read exclusively books and papers that I host on my home NAS; no DRM content. I use Calibre so I can read them on Phone, Tablet, or E-Reader from anywhere.
sourcecodeplz 4y ago
When you have power, you use it...
longnguyen 4y ago
Shameless plug: I build a tool to forward RSS feeds and newsletters to Kindle automatically[0]. While it could not replace the official periodicals, it works pretty well for my personal reading workflow. Consider giving it a try if you’re looking for an alternative. [0]: https://ktool.io https://ktool.io
- donohoe 4y ago
  I’m thinking of setting up a service for the org I work at. I’ll give it a go!
- ncphil 4y ago
  When Kindle first came out my kids were just starting to get into reading more, so I wrote a perl script to poll various RSS feed that emailed their own personalized "newsletter" to the Kindle for each of them. It was a fun project, but I don't think they paid it much attention. Eventually the feeds I was using all went defunct or threw so many errors I abandoned it.
  - longnguyen 4y ago
    I’m sure it was fun working on that project. Parsing web content and packaging into epub is so much fun. But handling Amazon bugs is not :(
- jacobjwebber 4y ago
  Just signed up! This looks v good
- edu115 4y ago
  9€/month for Platinum, which is the only option with more than 5 RSS feeds, is a bit too much in my opinion. I think if you could keep it sub-5€/$ you'd get a lot more subscribers.
  - longnguyen 4y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion. I gotta admit I’m constantly improving my profile. Your feedback is well noted and I am will work on it soon.
giovannibonetti 4y ago
I think the reason for the shutdown of the service is that the price customers are actually willing to pay for news has decreased a lot since the web took over it. Nowadays there are so many free or cheap ways to get informed online that paying tens of dollars a month to subscribe to one or two newspapers seems relative expensive. That's why successful outlets like The Economist put so much emphasis into convincing potential customers that accurate information is valuable. It sure is, but people have to be constantly reminded of it.
- asdfiwerio 4y ago
  Deep down people value both entertainment and being informed. The issue is if someone isn't thinking the two look the same, especially if the enticing title is something you already believe. Clickbait journalism is just yellow journalism 2.0. We need desperately need some laws to setup some basic guardrails on what can be called and marketed as journalism or news.
- tootie 4y ago
  I think not enough is made of the damage caused by aggregators. And I don't just mean like reddit I mean things like The Hill or Huff Po that pay for subscriptions to original reporting and then digest everything they write with a clickbait headline and leech all the ad dollars away from the people who did the hard work.
- ben7799 4y ago
  Reader's price expectations had already dropped to $0.00/month before the Kindle newsstand launched. The newspapers had already set the price to free for about 10-15 years before Amazon launched the Kindle newsstand. The newspapers for the most part have still never made the online quality as good as the print copy too. People cannot discount that these papers all put up free editions on the web for a long time and didn't realize the damage till the print subscriptions tanked.
NiloCK 4y ago
Almost every day there is a front page story on HN about some service shutting down, some account being locked without recourse, some purchased (licensed) media being clawed back from its owner (user) because the usage no longer serves the interests of the platform (or, is no longer estimated to be an optimal service of the platform's interests). But at the same time the overwhelming sentiment here (I know - plurality of opinions, no true news-hacker, etc) is that decentralized compute platforms with strong guarantees on durable permissionless interoperability are, at best, a solution looking for a problem. If this Amazon story disappoints, frustrates, frightens you, please consider for a moment that this is the problem that web3 wants to solve.
- Illniyar 4y ago
  No one is saying that decentralized compute platforms are a problem. Torrents, IPFS, seti.home etc... were quite popular. It's blockchain that is the problem. It is the inherent massive massive waste and inefficiencies in that technology that prompts everyone to say that there are more efficent ways to do it, and in the end something that can do the same thing more efficiently is better.
- lancesells 4y ago
  I don't agree with this. web3 does nothing to be the size of a big box store (amazon, wal-mart, etc.) or creating the hardware to read it on, or having publishers sign up for it, or any of the marketing that goes along with it. An drm-free .epub file is all someone needs for this to be solved. It's overkill to have some immutable record running until eternity for those that purchased People magazine.
VLM 4y ago
Isn't the graph of magazine subscriptions pretty rough looking over the last decades?
ncphil 4y ago
I subscribed to the NYT and a few magazines like The Atlantic when Kindle originally launched and really enjoyed the experience, but got out of the habit of reading them and dropped those subs long before prices went up. It was "too good to be true" from the beginning, and I think the knowledge it would just become another money pit contributed to my losing interest. Sort of like how that old Saab with its overheating engine helped me get over the allure of car ownership.
PaulHoule 4y ago
I had a paper subscription to The Economist through AMZN that I was planning to eliminate (subscribe directly) as part of a plan to eliminate all my recurring bills to AMZN and it’s convenient that they did it for me.
mabbo 4y ago
There's something to be said for today's business model that much of big tech uses: "First we build it, then we get customers who love it, then we try to figure out how to monetize it- and kill it if we don't". Google is, of course, the king of this model, but it feels as though the entire industry fully embraces it. I'm waiting for the day my Alexa shuts itself off forever because I still don't see how it makes a dime.
- maushu 4y ago
  When you can't find the source of revenue then that generally means you are the source of revenue.
- Amorymeltzer 4y ago
  This is essentially Cory Doctorow's "Enshittification": <https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys>, briefly discussed here at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479>
- cmiles74 4y ago
  Amazon is definitely making money on these subscriptions. IMHO, they simply want to make even more money by pushing everyone onto "Unlimited". Maybe more like "how to super-monetize it".
- pungentcomment 4y ago
  I read somewhere that it's a huge money loser for Amazon. Alexa being such a big part of Amazon's identity, could they shut it down without losing face though?
Lolaccount 4y ago
Hmm, with the changes at Amazon Music (on Sonos at least), this is the first time I've noticed some proper, consistent chipping away at the benefits of an Amazon Prime membership. I jumped ship to Amazon after Google actively prevented me from paying them (!). Time to stop lying to myself and go 100% local.
- trts 4y ago
  What was it they changed about Music?
  - Kneecaps07 4y ago
    If you use it through your Prime subscription you can now only listen to their playlists. You can't specify a specific album by a specific artist.
    - wrycoder 4y ago
      Prime Muzak, iow.
jonstewart 4y ago
I get The New Yorker through Amazon, and it’s a much nicer experience using the Kindle app on my iPad than fooling around with the buggy New Yorker app. Shame. I will not, of course, be getting one of these Amazon subscriptions.
fullshark 4y ago
It is depressing how little Amazon cares about the Kindle, a device that would have seemed utterly magical 25 years ago as the internet matured, is just a low margin monopoly it maintains.
- braunboffel 4y ago
  > low margin monopoly it maintains. Please help me understand what you mean by monopoly. What is exclusive to Amazon? Aren't there competitors like Kobo, Onyx, etc?
  - Kneecaps07 4y ago
    A monopoly just means you control the prices of a particular market. Amazon, in my opinion, absolutely has control of the ebook market. If they lower prices, everyone else has to lower theirs to keep up.
    - braunboffel 4y ago
      > Amazon, in my opinion, absolutely has control of the ebook market. If they lower prices, everyone else has to lower theirs to keep up. Uhm? Would you like to try explaining that again?
      - danjoredd 4y ago
        not OP but why would the average person buy a book from example.com for 15 dollars when Amazon sells it for 10? Here or there there might be a person who pays the extra 5 out of principle, but most people are going to buy from Amazon because that's what they know, and its cheaper anyway. In order to make money, other stores are going to need to match Amazon or beat it just to enter the public consciousness a little bit. Thats why Amazon kinda controls the ebook market
        braunboffel 4y ago
        Am I correct in understanding you that you're saying companies shouldn't be able to sell at the lowest price they can sell at? How is that anti-competition, a monopoly?
ss108 4y ago
To be clear, this doesn't affect subscriptions bought via Amazon that people read on the Kindle app on iPads and Android tablets?
bookofjoe 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35125450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35125450
zw123456 4y ago
I recently went to the AWP Conference (https://www.awpwriter.org/ https://www.awpwriter.org/). It was very interesting to walk around the exhibition hall and talk with all these small independent book publishers and presses. I bought a couple of books, one is a poetry book, which I confess, I have never bought a book of poetry before, but the author was there and signed it and I sort of fell in love with her and her poems. I asked a number of the people from these independent publishers what they thought about Amazon. I was surprised at their answers, it varied of course but they agreed it was somewhat of a love hate relationship. On the one hand, Amazon gave them a marketplace, but on the other hand, they could be a bit of a malevolent master. There were also a number of literary magazines there and they had similar feelings. I wish Amazon could find a way to do more to support the literary world, seeing all these brilliant little presses often who specialize in various genres that give new authors opportunities.
bublyboi 4y ago
Damn. This was a really useful tool for me to manage all my magazine subscriptions without dealing with shady auto-renewal practices by publishers.
- wrycoder 4y ago
  Try Apple News+
  - myvoiceismypass 4y ago
    Apple News+ is digital-only. I really enjoy reading magazines, and Amazon had been managing most of my subscriptions until now.
    - bublyboi 4y ago
      Same, I prefer to unplug and read the physical magazines. Is there a decent alternative service for managing my physical magazine subscriptions? I have 3 subscriptions that I only have because Amazon makes them easy to manage/renew/cancel
kdamica 4y ago
I actually canceled my WaPo subscription because I couldn’t figure out how to remove it from my Kindle.
rchaud 4y ago
> Very disappointing. I had only recently discovered that I actually enjoy reading my local newspaper when it’s on the Kindle as opposed to the paper’s poorly designed website and frequently broken app. Back when I had a NYT subscription, I'd use Ublock's element zapper to remove the "other article links block" that would show up halfway through an article. But still, reading it on a web page didn't feel right, so I used "Print to PDF" and never looked back. Now I have a personal archive of articles backed up and highlighted, ready for me to revisit even if my subscription has lapsed. Not all sites work on "Reader Mode", but all sites can still be printed (for now).
nashashmi 4y ago
So the individual subscription model directly competes with their Amazon Kindle unlimited. This is about harnessing control for themselves. And when control of journalism is harnessed directly by the corporations they can prevent bad news about Amazon from being published, and they definitely can prevent “false” news of Amazon, being published
ben7799 4y ago
This has been doomed from the start. I bought the first kindle that supported this when it was introduced, I think it was around 2010 and have always occasionally bought issues here or there thinking it would improve. The newspapers never wanted this to succeed. They always wanted to drive you to the website or make you buy the paper copy. They never were happy with the prices on the Kindle, and they couldn't deal with the fact that the Kindle editions didn't allow them unlimited ads. My local big newspaper never even put all their sections into the kindle edition. They charged a lot for a subscription, but the website/digital edition of the paper was even more, they want about $30/month for access to the website even though it's completely loaded with ads. It's basically all too expensive and too low quality for what they want to charge versus what $30/month is expected to offer for other services on the internet. I'm sure the newspapers hate it but stuff like Apple News+ has the right model. It's not a massive price gouge, the ads are there but are limited, and they do at least get some money, and iPads and such are a better place to read newspaper/magazine content then the kindle is.
deleted 4y ago
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tylerekahn 4y ago
I built a service for reading RSS feeds on your Kindle in their newspaper format. As far as I know, I went the farthest compared to any competing service in terms of reproducing the format exactly with the highest fidelity and full feature set (it required a lot of time and stubborn effort to reverse engineer it). https://omreader.co https://omreader.co Unfortunately it seems like they are discontinuing support for using the Send-to-Kindle functionality for .mobi files and I hadn't really been able to devote attention to it given some other things I had to attend to so it's now defunct. If anyone has anymore information on the status of loading .mobi files onto a Kindle, I'd be interested to hear about it.
AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
Here's hoping this encourages some online newspapers/periodicals to start releasing their digital editions as native EPUBs. I like to read with an e-reader, but I have a Kobo, and the only magazine I ever subscribed to that would give me an EPUB was LinuxJournal (R.I.P). Everything else was either PDF, or assumed you were hooked into the Kindle ecosystem.

346 points by thm 4y ago

Vote with your wallet people. If you don't like this move (and what it implies), then spend your dollars somewhere other than Kindle/Amazon.

mdavidn 4y ago

I am really disappointed by this. These days, I mostly use my (fifth) Kindle when flying on aircraft, and there I mostly read The Economist or The Atlantic. They don't publish offline media for laptops. I don't own a tablet. My phone battery is precious on trips. I guess I'll just look for paper copies at the terminal again...?

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
> They don't publish in an offline format for laptops. I don't own a tablet. The conclusion to draw is that you clearly don't own your ereader either. I mean DRM does not stop those unwilling to pay. If the only achievement of DRM is to annoy the people who are willing to pay, i wonder if it likely increases rather than reduces piracy. There is no reason why you shouldn't be able to be served an open epub with your magazine subscription.
- Talanes 4y ago
  The problem isn't putting the content onto the device, that's very easy to do. The problem is that the content isn't being published in any offline-viewable formats anymore, so there's nothing to transfer.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mdavidn 4y ago
  I'm not sure who you're preaching to. I've owned five of these devices over the past 14 years. I accept DRM for the things I read on it. If the publishers offered a DRM-laden edition that I could read offline on my laptop, I would find that to be a compelling option.
  - Talanes 4y ago
    Not to mention that DRM on the Kindle isn't a hardware-side constraint. The device will happily accept DRM-free files side-loaded onto it.
  - rendaw 4y ago
    While maybe not what GP was getting at, it sounds like you're frustrated that they don't offer a format, not that they don't offer a DRM-free version. That sounds like being frustrated your owner only gives you dry kibble.
HyperSane 4y ago
Can't you use the Kindle app on your laptop?
- mdavidn 4y ago
  I don't see how this helps? If I could get The Economist in the Kindle app, then I could still get it on my Kindle.
- lmm 4y ago
  That doesn't help, the issue is these things are no longer going to be published on the Kindle platform at all.
iz_zi 4y ago
Why haven’t you invested in a open source alternative that doesn’t limit your choices?
- mdavidn 4y ago
  What would an "open source alternative" to The Economist look like exactly?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - iz_zi 4y ago
    I meant the e reader, not the economist, to clarify.
    - iz_zi 4y ago
      Also there are many open source e readers, that include e ink technology too. Amazon tried but idk something’s off.. smells like Microsoft… a bit if you ask me :^)
    - BossingAround 4y ago
      Ah yes, the DRM that is solved by buying a device which does not support said DRM.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- daveoc64 4y ago
  You've not understood the problem. The problem is not the devices that support DRM. Many ereaders support some form of DRM, but that doesn't stop you reading both free and paid content without DRM. The problem is that the content (Newspapers/Magazine) is not made available via a suitable medium to continue reading it on an ereader.
mesh 4y ago
fyi, if you have a subscription to the Economist, you can read each edition offline via their mobile app. Available every Thursday. You can also listen to it, but that doesnt work offline.
- lasr_velocirptr 4y ago
  It does work offline. I don't remember the exact steps on how to do it. Basically, you can get an rss feed with credentials imported into podcast app of your choice and just download the episode before going offline. I prefer this approach since 1) It works offline 2) I can use podcast player of my choice with much better UX than the economist app
  - mesh 4y ago
    Ahh, you are saying the Economists app just uses RSS behind the scenes? Why didn't I think of that!?! This actually solves real problems for me as I have to often drive through areas where I have no coverage, and I listen to the economist (much to the chagrin of my wife who is riding with me). Thanks! edit: Found the info, its actually on the Economists site (looks like you have to login): https://www.economist.com/audio-edition https://www.economist.com/audio-edition
    - lasr_velocirptr 4y ago
      Welcome! Yup. That’s the link. You can just log in there if you have subscription and grab the rss url It will look like https://www.economist.com/audio-edition-podcast/<auth_token>/index.xml https://www.economist.com/audio-edition-podcast/<auth_token>... You can paste that into a podcast app of your choice. I use pocket casts on iOS which works with the above url for sure
Sunspark 4y ago
Did you know that airplanes have power outlets at foot level, sometimes USB ports higher up? You could simply bring your phone charger with you on the plane..
- kube-system 4y ago
  This varies by configuration. Some aircraft and airlines do not. Only one out of the last 25 or so flights I’ve been on have an outlet. For example, Southwest is one of the worlds largest airlines and didn’t have outlets on any of its 700+ airplanes. (Neither AC nor USB) They just announced they will start ordering jets with USB ports starting this year. Also it is fairly common for short haul or regional jets to lack power outlets as well.
  - Sunspark 4y ago
    Surprising to hear that such a large airline wouldn't have power outlets in 2023 but perhaps it makes sense, because Southwest doesn't really do "long flights". Good info for fliers to be aware of. For Southwest and short haul fliers, I would then recommend an USB battery bank. They come in large capacities now which would cover several full charges.
- gnicholas 4y ago
  I no longer have USB-A, which is the only USB receptacle I’ve ever seen on a plane.
  - rationalist 4y ago
    They make USB-A to USB-C adapters.
    - gnicholas 4y ago
      True, but if I'm traveling I'm not likely to bring a second phone charger cable just for this, especially because they can't charge as fast as USB-C cables. I bring a USB-C brick for my computer and USB-C to lightning cable for my iPhone.
cheeze 4y ago
Do people not fly with a USB battery on trips these days?
thazework 4y ago
For the Economist you should be able to download offline editions through the app- https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/Whats-included-in-The-Economist-app https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/Whats-included-in-...
- chaorace 4y ago
  Is it really the same experience, though? In newsstand publications, you can swipe up/down to skip articles and there's a special 2-pane ToC that lets you navigate by sections. I'm not even sure if the epub format has the capability to provide magazine-specific integrations like these.
damontal 4y ago
You can use Calibre to download the Economist each week and send it to your kindle.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  Sure, but I wish I didn't have to jump through these hoops.
robk 4y ago
Calibre from command line + email to Kindle works fine if you have any kind of machine that's online (or even a free tier Oracle VPS)

mrwh 4y ago

I had to read the email I got about this several times because it didn't seem to make sense. Hang on, my New York Times subscription is going to end in September and then... that's it? The Kindle is wonderful for reading newspapers on, and now - what? And why? I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change. I'm also sure that I've never seen a deprecation so poorly communicated.

somenameforme 4y ago
From reading the article and its subsequent links, it sounds like they're trying to transition from a la carte purchases, to an all-in-one Netflix model. It's probably just a power play against publishers - swap to Kindle Unlimited and take a [presumably] smaller cut, or get nothing at all. And I'd expect it to work.
- dehrmann 4y ago
  I've had a Kindle subscription to The Atlantic for a long time. I only look at it from time to time, but the price is low, and I don't feel guilty when I read their website for free. I couldn't quickly find out if they're even on Kindle Unlimited, and I don't read enough to make KU worth it.
kaishiro 4y ago
"I'm sure that someone has a very good reason for the change." Call me jaded, but the older I get the less faith I have that this is actually true.
- mrwh 4y ago
  Oh to be clear, I'm including "VP responsible gets a bonus". I certainly don't mean necessarily a good reason for the rest of us!
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
Amazon doesn't want you to have a subscription to the New York Times. Amazon wants you to have a subscription to Amazon Unlimited, which would include access to the New York Times. Amazon would then pay the New York Times and all other periodicals an amount that Amazon thinks is fair based on how many people are reading their articles, like Amazon Unlimited books. This is very bad for big periodicals with many subscribers. Under the current model, they get a predictable amount of income and are motivated by keeping the bar high for their content, lest they lose subscribers. Under the new model, their income is entirely based on how many people pick up that issue and read it, which makes it very hard to budget. It also likely means an inevitable slide into "politician SLAMMED other politican, and you'll NEVER BELIEVE what happened next" headlines, since extra clicks are very directly your periodical's source of income. This is very good news for Amazon because it gives them far more bargaining power against publishers. Right now, if The New York Times decides that Amazon's terms favor Amazon too strongly, the Times walks, and Amazon doesn't get any more money from Times subscribers. Under this system, if the Times walks because Amazon terms favor Amazon too strongly, Amazon keeps the subscribers. This is moderately good news for customers who read a bunch of stuff on Amazon Unlimited. You now get to read whatever you like for probably around the same cost, and the stuff you naturally choose to read will end up getting a bit of money from it. Yay. This is probably moderately good news for niche, popcorn periodicals. If you have a "Werewolf Romance Weekly Short Fiction" magazine or "DIY Productivity Tip Of the Week" newsletter, you'll quite possibly make way more money by attracting idly browsing Amazon Unlimited customers than you would have been able to if you had needed to convince people to subscribe to your service.

emodendroket 4y ago

I honestly found it a much more pleasant way to read the LRB than the print version but I guess it doesn't do much good to serve a small customer base.

sohkamyung 4y ago

If you have an Overdrive Library subscription, you can try checking its magazine section to see if your library subscribes to the magazine(s) you read. Locally, my Library has Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, etc. It used to also have The Economist, but that appears to have recently vanished. For subscriptions to SFF magazines, try WeightlessBooks which offers subscription to a number of magazines [1] [1] https://weightlessbooks.com/category/magazine/ https://weightlessbooks.com/category/magazine/

emodendroket 4y ago
To my mind a significant part of the value proposition for the Kindle edition is you don't have to do anything and it just gets delivered to the device.
- no_butterscotch 4y ago
  ah yea this was going to be my follow-up to the post you replied to, can I use the library app(s) (Overdrive, Libby, Axis, etc) to subscribe to new editions of these mags as they arrive at the library? ...the obvious answer from a business standpoint is of course for the magazines to not allow this, but I'm not going to remember to go look at some edition
  - sohkamyung 4y ago
    Libby does have a smart tags feature that can be used to alert you about new magazines [1]. (Libby is the library app developed by Overdrive.) > Can I be notified when new magazine issues are available? > Yes! You can use a "Notify Me" smart tag in Libby to get a notification when new issues of a magazine are available at your library. [1] https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6224.htm https://help.libbyapp.com/en-us/6224.htm
lasr_velocirptr 4y ago
I wasn't able to find any integration with overdrive in Canada when I last tried the kindle. The Kobo's here do work seamlessly with overdrive but only for ebooks though, no magazines or audiobooks

deelowe 4y ago

Why? This makes no sense. Is it really that difficult for them to maintain?

radicaldreamer 4y ago
Kindle in general doesn’t seem to make enough revenue to justify the engineering effort/expense. Its languished as a Bezos passion project and is being killed slowly.
- michaelt 4y ago
  They've released 11 generations of the hardware, I think it might be doing OK.
  - radicaldreamer 4y ago
    Again, having the founder and CEO use the product every day goes a long way

Multiplayer 4y ago

FWIW the Apple News app has an incredible number of Magazines and Newspapers. News+ $10 monthly subscription is a solid deal.

kccqzy 4y ago
I don't need an incredible number of magazines and newspapers—I don't have time to an incredible number of magazines anyways. I only want a small handful of them that are high quality, that I can read by my bedside without a phone. Currently I'm just subscribed to The Economist via Amazon.
marban 4y ago
Still US-only though
tgv 4y ago
I has the same problem as outlined higher up: it moves money from the newspaper to the tech moloch, that can then exert control over the news. The paper will be forced to "popularize" its article stream (Did Aliens Invade the White House?) to the detriment of free news gathering and democracy, all for 30 silver coins.
- ben7799 4y ago
  The problem is a lot of the papers and newspapers want more money for a subscription to one single magazine or newspaper than the entire Apple News+ subscription. And especially the newspapers already dropped their content quality decades ago before things like Apple News or the Kindle even existed.
toyg 4y ago
Apple News is the unhealthy model Amazon is trying to follow. Yet again, Apple leads the market into digital feudalism, and their fanboys are happy to lead the charge.
- criddell 4y ago
  It’s hard to say if it’s unhealthy or not. It’s basically the same model as Spotify. Is streaming music bad for the music industry? It’s not obvious to me what the answer is. I subscribe to Apple News and the $120 / year is far, far more than I was spending on magazine subscriptions in the past.

komali2 4y ago

> Amazon hasn’t shared its exact reason for the change (the company’s statement to publishers is here), but one obvious explanation is that relatively few people are buying these subscriptions and it doesn’t make financial sense to continue to support them. Instead, Amazon wants publishers to add their content to its $9.99/month digital subscription program, Kindle Unlimited, which includes a bunch of magazines I'm pretty confident that "Amazon wants publishers to add their content to Kindle Unlimited" is the ONLY reason, and that it wouldn't matter how much revenue was generated through direct payments to publishers. This is the Way, after all, of modern platform monopoly. It's highly profitable.

brutusurp 4y ago
This is to consolidate offerings, and drive more money to Amazon and less to 3rd parties. Just like retail, and skills. How is this not under investigation.
Mindwipe 4y ago
The more obvious explanation is that a lot of the Kindle team were let go in the recent layoffs, and there now isn't enough people to run the service so everything non-essential is going to shift people over to keeping the lights on (the same is happening to the remnants of the Comixology team).

zol 4y ago

What a huge step backwards! I have an infant and am trying to move more of my content consumption including news to Kindle vs iPhone. Even at one years old she’s already forming an unhealthy relationship with smart phones given how much she sees her parents using them so I’m trying to cut down as much as possible. Interestingly, like a physical book, the kindle doesn’t get much reaction from her.

pgib 4y ago

Sure hope 2600 finds a new means of distribution. It was super convenient going to my Kindle and was a no-brainer to subscribe.

nischalsamji 4y ago
what will happen to the old 2600 magazines? I have been a subscriber since 2015. sad to see this going away
- aestetix 4y ago
  2600 is working on a solution. https://twitter.com/2600/status/1634298291599859712 https://twitter.com/2600/status/1634298291599859712

btzs 4y ago

What I like about my subscription of the German weekly newspaper 'Die Zeit' is that they allow sending the mobi directly to your Send-To-Kindle-email address. Are you aware of other magazines offering that?

joker99 4y ago
Love that feature! Every wednesday, I get it automatically pushed to my kindle and it's fabulous! The only annoying part: it's not really optimised for a small screen and graphics are often left out, but hey, it's still great!

freetanga 4y ago

While I loved the kindle and still own one, I have since moved on an eink android reader with an isolated google account. Calibre, Overdrive, RSS, Syncthing and obsidian plus a small portable Bluetooth keyboard and I can read and take notes anywhere.

albatrosstrophy 4y ago
You seem to be describing an Android tablet with e-ink display. Aside from Remarkable, what else is out there worth buying?
- freetanga 4y ago
  Supernote, Onyx have a wide range of options. Onyx relationship with Open Source licensing is… delicate. This could be a stopper for some. I had a Remarkable 1 but I feel the company is trying to be the next Apple. Everything now is subscription. Shame, as The reading experience was good, writing was excellent, software was open but clunky.
  - Galanwe 4y ago
    I used the Remarkable 1 for many years, until recently I got bored of hum converting hum my kindle library to epub to read on the remarkable. I switched to an Onyx Boox Tab X (effectively an android tablet with eink screen) and wouldn't go back. I have the Kindle reader app and can read very comfortably all my books, with the same comfort as with a Kindle device. But I can also take meeting notes, brainstorm, etc thanks to the writing capabilities similar to the Remarkable. As a bonus, I can also use it as a whiteboard in video calls.
    - blitzar 4y ago
      > $879.99 Jeepers - not sure I am going to swap my $50 kindle for that one.
    - idonotknowwhy 4y ago
      Calibre let's you convert in bulk fwiw

thazework 4y ago

Cutting off access to information in such a barbaric, offhanded way is the logical conclusion of the monopoly structure that enabled Amazon to do this without repercussion. A triple monopoly in this case Amazon/Kindle/ E ink. This will disproportionately impact those who do not live in the US/UK and rely on their subscription as the only reasonable means of timely access. I urge you to write to write to jeff@amazon.com to voice your displeasure.

braunboffel 4y ago
> monopoly structure that enabled Amazon to do this without repercussion What monopoly structure?
- thazework 4y ago
  Eink: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26143779 Combine that with Amazon's newstand dominance in Eink news delivery, and the end result is that newstand's closure leaves readers with no viable alternative.
  - braunboffel 4y ago
    Am I correct in describing above evidence as a throwaway claim on HN that was never substantiated and the throwaway account never responded to any requests for data? Do you have any other evidence that you used to form your conclusion?

moi2388 4y ago

They need to at least provide an option for other publishers to also get their content on the kindle, other than Amazon’s own subscription service. Otherwise they are using an advantage in one market (devices) to obtain an advantage in a different market (online content). The EU will eat them alive if they try that anti-competitive behaviour.

EduardoBautista 4y ago
They can by sending it to your Kindle email for that device. Instapaper does this to send you your saved items.
- moi2388 4y ago
  Good to know. So it’s just a free tier that’s being removed? That seems fair enough
thomasthetrain 4y ago
It warrants an investigation, but maybe publishers don’t even distribute that much via Amazon devices. In this case, the competitive effects would be small.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cygnus2512 4y ago

Back in 2015, I had a opportunity to work with a group of volunteers (non-profit organization that focused on community development in rural areas of Africa) and started using Kindles loaded with newspapers and magazines from the Kindle Newsstand as part of an education program. The whole group would visit villages and set up reading stations with the Kindles. That program over time, became so successful that it attracted the attention of other non-profit organizations, as well as government officials and educators. Like the political leaders talked about these kindles for many years and still do. The use of Kindles and other digital devices in education programs has become such an effective tool to reach out to remote and underprivileged areas around the world, and the world will miss Kindle Newsstand! Thanks for playing a role in providing access to reading materials in these communities:)

ravel-bar-foo 4y ago
Around 2013 our university digitized their newspaper displays. Prior to the renovation, newspapers were posted daily in large vertical glass-covered display cases in the student lounge of the library (the library would buy and post two copies so all pages were face up). Tens of students at a time would slowly walk down the row of newspapers reading during their study breaks and quietly chatting while sipping on coffee. After the lounge was renovated and made into a digital media space this culture completely disappeared. I saw maybe two people use the digital kiosks to read newspapers in the subsequent year. It was heartbreaking to see the culture of community newspaper reading just collapse.
- bibanez 4y ago
  There is one at my university. It's custom software and it breaks all the time, such a waste of energy because no one reads it!
- SentientAtom 4y ago
  Seems there is a psychological effect at play. I imagine a social ritual of standing and reading something that is always in-focus requiring no scrolling is far more appealing.

ohgodplsno 4y ago

Reminder that Calibre [https://calibre-ebook.com/about https://calibre-ebook.com/about] has the ability to send news sources directly to your Kindle, handles news sources that require a subscription like the NYT [https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html https://manual.calibre-ebook.com/news.html], as well as literally any RSS feed. The only thing Calibre needs is a better UI, but that's not too different from most OSS projects. It is better than anything Amazon could ever hope to offer and as a bonus you don't give the bald man more money to destroy society.

precompute 4y ago
I think it's also possible to set up Calibre on a RPi (or similar) connected to the internet and have it send the azw3 files of the chosen rss feeds / newspaper feeds to a kindle via email.
tonybologna420 4y ago
How is the data going from Calibre to the Kindle itself? Do you need to keep Calibre running on a machine that's also using the same wifi connection as your Kindle? Does the data get sent using the Kindle email address? Somehow through a Calibre server? I was curious how this is done and couldn't find any information on the Calibre website. Thanks.
- ohgodplsno 4y ago
  So, I haven't used my Kindle for a while, and the last one I have is a 2nd gen, but the options I know: - Plug in your Kindle on your PC, let it sync manually. Calibre has an option to know if it already synced or not, and will automatically start the news sync the moment you plug it in. - Send it through the email address. This does require Calibre to be running _somewhere_, on your desktop, your laptop, hell, even a phone port would be a great idea. There might be things on wifi, but I've sticked to these two options. There's no Calibre server to speak of.

randomint64 4y ago

As an avid reader, I'm disappointed by Amazon's decision to discontinue individual newspaper and magazine subscriptions in favor of Kindle Unlimited. This change reduces my ability to support specific publications I value, potentially leading to less variety in the market. It diminishes my sense of ownership, as content becomes more ephemeral within a subscription service. I really can't wait for competitors to shake down this predatory monopoly.

snickerbockers 4y ago

What happens to people's back catalogs of old magazines? Can they still read those or is Amazon laughing all the way to the bank? When i was a kid i lost my music collection to the yahoo music store shutting down, and it's left an impression on me even though it wasn't a very large collection. It's the reason why ive held out on buying an ereader until they drop the drm.

cpill 4y ago
zlibrary dude
idonotknowwhy 4y ago
You can use a tool called Calibre to strip DRM from your ebooks. Also let's your side load them onto a different branded device so you're not locked in. Eg. I moved from kindle to kobo and was able to bring my content with me
- criddell 4y ago
  The DeDRM tools don’t work with lots of new books from Amazon. The days of easily stripped DRM on Amazon books seems to be coming to an end.
  - jzb 4y ago
    If you have an older Kindle, you can download the older format, I believe. I still have a Kindle DX for this.
    - criddell 4y ago
      True but it’s not ideal. You lose the typographic improvements that you get in the newer format. Still, it’s better than nothing and I’ve read that some people have purchased a used, older Kindle just to get access to the older file format.
Aromasin 4y ago
Get a Boox if you want a DRM-free e-reader. I read exclusively books and papers that I host on my home NAS; no DRM content. I use Calibre so I can read them on Phone, Tablet, or E-Reader from anywhere.

sourcecodeplz 4y ago

When you have power, you use it...

longnguyen 4y ago

Shameless plug: I build a tool to forward RSS feeds and newsletters to Kindle automatically[0]. While it could not replace the official periodicals, it works pretty well for my personal reading workflow. Consider giving it a try if you’re looking for an alternative. [0]: https://ktool.io https://ktool.io

donohoe 4y ago
I’m thinking of setting up a service for the org I work at. I’ll give it a go!
ncphil 4y ago
When Kindle first came out my kids were just starting to get into reading more, so I wrote a perl script to poll various RSS feed that emailed their own personalized "newsletter" to the Kindle for each of them. It was a fun project, but I don't think they paid it much attention. Eventually the feeds I was using all went defunct or threw so many errors I abandoned it.
- longnguyen 4y ago
  I’m sure it was fun working on that project. Parsing web content and packaging into epub is so much fun. But handling Amazon bugs is not :(
jacobjwebber 4y ago
Just signed up! This looks v good
edu115 4y ago
9€/month for Platinum, which is the only option with more than 5 RSS feeds, is a bit too much in my opinion. I think if you could keep it sub-5€/$ you'd get a lot more subscribers.
- longnguyen 4y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I gotta admit I’m constantly improving my profile. Your feedback is well noted and I am will work on it soon.

giovannibonetti 4y ago

I think the reason for the shutdown of the service is that the price customers are actually willing to pay for news has decreased a lot since the web took over it. Nowadays there are so many free or cheap ways to get informed online that paying tens of dollars a month to subscribe to one or two newspapers seems relative expensive. That's why successful outlets like The Economist put so much emphasis into convincing potential customers that accurate information is valuable. It sure is, but people have to be constantly reminded of it.

asdfiwerio 4y ago
Deep down people value both entertainment and being informed. The issue is if someone isn't thinking the two look the same, especially if the enticing title is something you already believe. Clickbait journalism is just yellow journalism 2.0. We need desperately need some laws to setup some basic guardrails on what can be called and marketed as journalism or news.
tootie 4y ago
I think not enough is made of the damage caused by aggregators. And I don't just mean like reddit I mean things like The Hill or Huff Po that pay for subscriptions to original reporting and then digest everything they write with a clickbait headline and leech all the ad dollars away from the people who did the hard work.
ben7799 4y ago
Reader's price expectations had already dropped to $0.00/month before the Kindle newsstand launched. The newspapers had already set the price to free for about 10-15 years before Amazon launched the Kindle newsstand. The newspapers for the most part have still never made the online quality as good as the print copy too. People cannot discount that these papers all put up free editions on the web for a long time and didn't realize the damage till the print subscriptions tanked.

NiloCK 4y ago

Almost every day there is a front page story on HN about some service shutting down, some account being locked without recourse, some purchased (licensed) media being clawed back from its owner (user) because the usage no longer serves the interests of the platform (or, is no longer estimated to be an optimal service of the platform's interests). But at the same time the overwhelming sentiment here (I know - plurality of opinions, no true news-hacker, etc) is that decentralized compute platforms with strong guarantees on durable permissionless interoperability are, at best, a solution looking for a problem. If this Amazon story disappoints, frustrates, frightens you, please consider for a moment that this is the problem that web3 wants to solve.

Illniyar 4y ago
No one is saying that decentralized compute platforms are a problem. Torrents, IPFS, seti.home etc... were quite popular. It's blockchain that is the problem. It is the inherent massive massive waste and inefficiencies in that technology that prompts everyone to say that there are more efficent ways to do it, and in the end something that can do the same thing more efficiently is better.
lancesells 4y ago
I don't agree with this. web3 does nothing to be the size of a big box store (amazon, wal-mart, etc.) or creating the hardware to read it on, or having publishers sign up for it, or any of the marketing that goes along with it. An drm-free .epub file is all someone needs for this to be solved. It's overkill to have some immutable record running until eternity for those that purchased People magazine.

VLM 4y ago

Isn't the graph of magazine subscriptions pretty rough looking over the last decades?

ncphil 4y ago

I subscribed to the NYT and a few magazines like The Atlantic when Kindle originally launched and really enjoyed the experience, but got out of the habit of reading them and dropped those subs long before prices went up. It was "too good to be true" from the beginning, and I think the knowledge it would just become another money pit contributed to my losing interest. Sort of like how that old Saab with its overheating engine helped me get over the allure of car ownership.

PaulHoule 4y ago

I had a paper subscription to The Economist through AMZN that I was planning to eliminate (subscribe directly) as part of a plan to eliminate all my recurring bills to AMZN and it’s convenient that they did it for me.

mabbo 4y ago

There's something to be said for today's business model that much of big tech uses: "First we build it, then we get customers who love it, then we try to figure out how to monetize it- and kill it if we don't". Google is, of course, the king of this model, but it feels as though the entire industry fully embraces it. I'm waiting for the day my Alexa shuts itself off forever because I still don't see how it makes a dime.

maushu 4y ago
When you can't find the source of revenue then that generally means you are the source of revenue.
Amorymeltzer 4y ago
This is essentially Cory Doctorow's "Enshittification": <https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys>, briefly discussed here at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34480479>
cmiles74 4y ago
Amazon is definitely making money on these subscriptions. IMHO, they simply want to make even more money by pushing everyone onto "Unlimited". Maybe more like "how to super-monetize it".
pungentcomment 4y ago
I read somewhere that it's a huge money loser for Amazon. Alexa being such a big part of Amazon's identity, could they shut it down without losing face though?

Lolaccount 4y ago

Hmm, with the changes at Amazon Music (on Sonos at least), this is the first time I've noticed some proper, consistent chipping away at the benefits of an Amazon Prime membership. I jumped ship to Amazon after Google actively prevented me from paying them (!). Time to stop lying to myself and go 100% local.

trts 4y ago
What was it they changed about Music?
- Kneecaps07 4y ago
  If you use it through your Prime subscription you can now only listen to their playlists. You can't specify a specific album by a specific artist.
  - wrycoder 4y ago
    Prime Muzak, iow.

jonstewart 4y ago

I get The New Yorker through Amazon, and it’s a much nicer experience using the Kindle app on my iPad than fooling around with the buggy New Yorker app. Shame. I will not, of course, be getting one of these Amazon subscriptions.

fullshark 4y ago

It is depressing how little Amazon cares about the Kindle, a device that would have seemed utterly magical 25 years ago as the internet matured, is just a low margin monopoly it maintains.

braunboffel 4y ago
> low margin monopoly it maintains. Please help me understand what you mean by monopoly. What is exclusive to Amazon? Aren't there competitors like Kobo, Onyx, etc?
- Kneecaps07 4y ago
  A monopoly just means you control the prices of a particular market. Amazon, in my opinion, absolutely has control of the ebook market. If they lower prices, everyone else has to lower theirs to keep up.
  - braunboffel 4y ago
    > Amazon, in my opinion, absolutely has control of the ebook market. If they lower prices, everyone else has to lower theirs to keep up. Uhm? Would you like to try explaining that again?
    - danjoredd 4y ago
      not OP but why would the average person buy a book from example.com for 15 dollars when Amazon sells it for 10? Here or there there might be a person who pays the extra 5 out of principle, but most people are going to buy from Amazon because that's what they know, and its cheaper anyway. In order to make money, other stores are going to need to match Amazon or beat it just to enter the public consciousness a little bit. Thats why Amazon kinda controls the ebook market
      - braunboffel 4y ago
        Am I correct in understanding you that you're saying companies shouldn't be able to sell at the lowest price they can sell at? How is that anti-competition, a monopoly?

ss108 4y ago

To be clear, this doesn't affect subscriptions bought via Amazon that people read on the Kindle app on iPads and Android tablets?

bookofjoe 4y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35125450 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35125450

zw123456 4y ago

I recently went to the AWP Conference (https://www.awpwriter.org/ https://www.awpwriter.org/). It was very interesting to walk around the exhibition hall and talk with all these small independent book publishers and presses. I bought a couple of books, one is a poetry book, which I confess, I have never bought a book of poetry before, but the author was there and signed it and I sort of fell in love with her and her poems. I asked a number of the people from these independent publishers what they thought about Amazon. I was surprised at their answers, it varied of course but they agreed it was somewhat of a love hate relationship. On the one hand, Amazon gave them a marketplace, but on the other hand, they could be a bit of a malevolent master. There were also a number of literary magazines there and they had similar feelings. I wish Amazon could find a way to do more to support the literary world, seeing all these brilliant little presses often who specialize in various genres that give new authors opportunities.

bublyboi 4y ago

Damn. This was a really useful tool for me to manage all my magazine subscriptions without dealing with shady auto-renewal practices by publishers.

wrycoder 4y ago
Try Apple News+
- myvoiceismypass 4y ago
  Apple News+ is digital-only. I really enjoy reading magazines, and Amazon had been managing most of my subscriptions until now.
  - bublyboi 4y ago
    Same, I prefer to unplug and read the physical magazines. Is there a decent alternative service for managing my physical magazine subscriptions? I have 3 subscriptions that I only have because Amazon makes them easy to manage/renew/cancel

kdamica 4y ago

I actually canceled my WaPo subscription because I couldn’t figure out how to remove it from my Kindle.

rchaud 4y ago

> Very disappointing. I had only recently discovered that I actually enjoy reading my local newspaper when it’s on the Kindle as opposed to the paper’s poorly designed website and frequently broken app. Back when I had a NYT subscription, I'd use Ublock's element zapper to remove the "other article links block" that would show up halfway through an article. But still, reading it on a web page didn't feel right, so I used "Print to PDF" and never looked back. Now I have a personal archive of articles backed up and highlighted, ready for me to revisit even if my subscription has lapsed. Not all sites work on "Reader Mode", but all sites can still be printed (for now).

nashashmi 4y ago

So the individual subscription model directly competes with their Amazon Kindle unlimited. This is about harnessing control for themselves. And when control of journalism is harnessed directly by the corporations they can prevent bad news about Amazon from being published, and they definitely can prevent “false” news of Amazon, being published

ben7799 4y ago

This has been doomed from the start. I bought the first kindle that supported this when it was introduced, I think it was around 2010 and have always occasionally bought issues here or there thinking it would improve. The newspapers never wanted this to succeed. They always wanted to drive you to the website or make you buy the paper copy. They never were happy with the prices on the Kindle, and they couldn't deal with the fact that the Kindle editions didn't allow them unlimited ads. My local big newspaper never even put all their sections into the kindle edition. They charged a lot for a subscription, but the website/digital edition of the paper was even more, they want about $30/month for access to the website even though it's completely loaded with ads. It's basically all too expensive and too low quality for what they want to charge versus what $30/month is expected to offer for other services on the internet. I'm sure the newspapers hate it but stuff like Apple News+ has the right model. It's not a massive price gouge, the ads are there but are limited, and they do at least get some money, and iPads and such are a better place to read newspaper/magazine content then the kindle is.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

tylerekahn 4y ago

I built a service for reading RSS feeds on your Kindle in their newspaper format. As far as I know, I went the farthest compared to any competing service in terms of reproducing the format exactly with the highest fidelity and full feature set (it required a lot of time and stubborn effort to reverse engineer it). https://omreader.co https://omreader.co Unfortunately it seems like they are discontinuing support for using the Send-to-Kindle functionality for .mobi files and I hadn't really been able to devote attention to it given some other things I had to attend to so it's now defunct. If anyone has anymore information on the status of loading .mobi files onto a Kindle, I'd be interested to hear about it.

AdmiralAsshat 4y ago

Here's hoping this encourages some online newspapers/periodicals to start releasing their digital editions as native EPUBs. I like to read with an e-reader, but I have a Kobo, and the only magazine I ever subscribed to that would give me an EPUB was LinuxJournal (R.I.P). Everything else was either PDF, or assumed you were hooked into the Kindle ecosystem.