26 ms·

Doesn't Amazon make it relatively difficult to use alternative stores with its e-readers (particularly the non-Android ones)?

• x0x0 12y ago
  Sure, but here's the thing: Spotify is still the best parallel. Amazon's weakness is they don't own the content everyone wants; they have to license it and there is no mandatory licensing. The big 5 publishers could up and stop letting amazon sell ebooks, form their own ebook selling consortium, and switch the vast majority of customers over. Or hell, buy B&N for the same reason.
  • chc 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure that kind of organized industry-wide boycott would run afoul of antitrust laws — and if it weren't organized and industry-wide, the publishers who defected would probably just be shooting themselves in the foot, because they would not be able to get everyone to buy a new e-reader that couldn't read any of their existing books.
    • x0x0 12y ago
      Yet Spotify exists. Are you aware of who owns a big chunk of it? You can also put non-amazon books -- in formats such as pdf -- on kindle. It's not as simple as buying through amazon, but it's very doable. Further, everyone who owns a smartphone or a tablet can just download a reader app.
• ulysses 12y ago
  No, it is trivially easy to put non-DRMed books onto a kindle. One publisher who I find particularly reader-friendly is Baen. If I buy a book from them, it goes into my account there so I can download it at any time (and any number of times) in the future, in a wide variety of formats. Since I do my reading on a kindle, I click the send to kindle link and it pops up next time I turn on my kindle's wireless.