Video Response: Living with Amazon and Kindle!
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- Опубликовано: 12 сен 2024
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I’ve had few problems with Amazon and I’ve had a Kindle since 2009. I’m disabled and frequently I use a walker or a wheelchair. I can’t tell you how convenient it is to have a large library on an easily portable device.
I have a friend with arthritis in her hands, and she got a Kindle early on. She absolutely loved it because there was no glare on the page, but especially because it didn't matter how long the book was, she only had to hold a light electronic device.
The kids and teens who are patrons at my library, for the most part, do not appreciate ebooks. They want their books in print. Which is exactly the opposite of what I expected.
My son is in his late 20s, and he doesn't use a Kindle at all. He would rather buy the physical book. He's just finished The Godfather. He and my late father both enjoyed sword and sorcery books and used to lend them to each other. He had a Kindle at one point, but he sold it. He just wasn't that into it.
I’m guilty of owning Kindle and paperback versions of the same book. Thanks for taking about this subject.
Fascinating hearing the observation about retail rents. I remember when in lived in Seattle and the big downtown B&N closed because the landlord jacked up the rent (that's what the asst mngr) told me anyway. He also said that corporate was looking for another site and they'd probably open a new one in 1-2 years. But then the pandemic happened and, as far as I know, there is still no B&N store anywhere in the Seattle city limits.
Great thoughts on this topic! I avoid E-books but for a different reason. I just don't enjoy reading E-Screens. They remind me too much of work. So my membership in the Luddite society pays unexpected dividends!
Wait, there are memberships?
I perfer reading physical books. I'm more of a physical reader rather than a eReader user. I'm an avid user of the library as well.
I struggle with Amazon. I love my Paperwhite, and I love the convenience of being able to order almost any physical book I want (I live on the benighted west coast, where bookstores are usually little more than quaint gift shops). But I also feel that we are all slightly culpable in making Amazon the monolithic monster it's become. I don't care how good the services they offer are, no one business should be able to so ruthlessly nail down the market.
They’re fast, easy, and ubiquitous! But they are indeed a monolith …
Hadn’t considered the real estate question! I love indie bookstores for their personalities and sense of community, and continue to buy from them regularly-love beautiful cover art and, yes, the smell of a new book. I’d say that about 70% of my reading happens on my Better Mousetraps, though. I have a Paperwhite that fits in my purse, and a Scribe with which I’m rather smitten-screen size is great, and it’s nice and light. Amazon’s case for it is really well designed, and I use the notebook capability daily; it’s a pleasure to write on, unlike my former iPads (which were NOT fun to read on). And I get a lot of things done while listening to audiobooks, as well. I have a few qualms about the ubiquity of Amazon, but they’re really convenient and reliable. Better Mousetraps FTW!
Great video Steve, I love how you structured this like an essay. Naturally siding on one end of the argument and then switching to the other during the final part of the video.
Also I’ve been considering getting a kindle recently so this was quite timely
This is what I felt with GoodReads when I deleted my profile/account. Constant YA promotions on the front page, a barrage of new releases that I was not interested (nor do I have the time in an ever expanding TBR list) and the sheer lack of features enabling me to customise it to my own needs/tastes.
(For the recorded I know Amazon owns GR)
Being able to borrow books from my local library onto my Kindle is one of the greatest things to ever happen in terms of my reading
Really! See, this is a function I never use - oh my, these comments (and the emails I’m getting on the subject) are SO interesting -
@saintdonoghue Most of the time the Kindle editions I get from the library are books where I own the physical copy but I need a way to keep reading after the wife goes to sleep
I bought my Kobo Libra 2 primarily because it has page-turning buttons and I couldn't be happier. I switched to electronic because physical was costing too much, was more inconvenient (No close bookstores) and was taking up lots of space, not to mention how much of a pain moving houses with lots of books is.
I love ebooks. I also love collecting physical books.
I'm not the biggest fan of Amazon but my Kindle is great. Just the ability to change the font size is enough of a selling point for me.
I didn't realize how much fatigue I accumulated from reading small font until I went back to my Kindle.
I have a small cataract in my left eye and retina damage from a childhood injury. I would read for while without my glasses and never notice I had closed my left eye until I started getting a headache.
Now I can actually read with both eyes open without my glasses on.
The backlit screen is also great. Now I don't feel bad reading in bed. My wife isn't fighting the artificial sun on my side of the bed 😂.
It is also nice to fall asleep and not lose my place in the book.
I don't like Amazon but you are right. The eReader is the better mousetrap.
It's not the device(s); it's the content -- and the promotion of paid content. As you said!
Virtually all of my friends who still buy physical books buy only used books. The ones buying ebooks (including myself) are the ones who buy new books. . . electronically.
MoKo makes a plastic cover for the paperwhite which costs about $8 and solves the power button problem.
Glad you mentioned egregious rents, a HUGE problem in Australia. I have an old kindle (with the keyboard) and only use it to read free ebooks from Gutenberg and the like. Otherwise I still use physical books. Sadly in Australia, amazon is the cheapest place to buy books, apart from the second hand market. Ereader sales are down since 2018, (even earlier on some measures). Most people are flocking to smart phones and tablets for their "reading".
Some tech friends of mine have been predicting a surge in tablets for a couple of years now, and I can see it. Certainly most of my own computer use has gradually migrated to one kind of tablet or another -
I have a Kindle Oasis, which is good, but I have a Boox A5 size edvice too, which has a colour screen, but similar to the paperwhite screen, which I find kind to the eyes. I can split the screen and make notes, annotate the ebook itself and use Kindle, Kobo and any other app I want. I can download Gutenberg books easily and for free.the Kindle is useful for sticking in my bag and using on the go. However, for serious reading at home, it's the Boox every time, particularly for new history, biographies etc. I still buy older books secondhand, if there is no available ebook. My trust of Amazon is low though. They would dump the ebook equipment and the software tomorrow, if it was not commercially working for them.
I had one of the original Kindles with the little keyboard on it. Now I have a Kindle Fire HD 10 tablet. I’d love to have a Scribe but it’s still a bit pricey. I still prefer print and paper books. I had two large Barnes and Noble stores near me, one for about 25 years. Both have closed due to rising rent costs. One closed outright. The other moved some miles away to a much smaller site located in the middle of a treacherous highway. I find it almost impossible to get there. Very sad.
I love my Oasis and the bezels make all the difference. I detest the page turning feature- you have to do it in the middle otherwise other things turn up and very annoying. It’s ergonomic and perfect size. It doesn’t slip from my hands like other e-readers do.
Amazon works although lately it’s annoying when buying Penguin black classics- they sell the older versions but send you the new ones. The books seem cheap and lloke like fakes. I’m not sure how to prove this but the page quality is different. This is an annoying recent problem. It has happened with other books as well.
“The books seem cheap and look like fakes” - you know, I’ve had that same experience many times in the last few years, and I can’t quite identify the real difference - I agree: it’s very annoying!
You touched on this repeatedly, for which I appreciate: for me, the issue here is really about ownership. DRM does not exist for the consumer or the creator’s benefit. The vertical monopoly of Amazon’s marketplace, GoodReads, Kindle format and syncing and finally hardware feels good to consumers until they realize there’s no ownership, no portability, and no user rights. When Amazon changes the terms, _pray they do not alter the deal further_
Heh - I know I say this all the time, but: I have the best viewers
As well as the recycling problem with electronic equipment, I have serious doubts about the longevity of technology formats and the willingness of companies to support any previous technology platforms.
Well, even if companies fail, those enormous libraries of e-books and their associated data (descriptions, reviews, ratings) … that’s a valuable product, right? Surely somebody would consider that worth buying and preserving? And the epub format is in enormously wide use all over the world, not just on Amazon - surely if formats changed, devices would still have the option to read it?
@@saintdonoghue Maybe.
I am attempting to weed Amazon out of my life due to the way their employees are treated.
Once I bought the Kindle Scribe all other Kindles became obsolete for me. I've read more on the bigger Kindle than I did on all the other Kindles combined. I might like page turn buttons but it's not all that important to me. I've been after a big screen for a long time and it's fair to say I practically live on the Scribe now.
I’m curious how the weight of the Scribe compares to the Paperwhite.
@@cheryllovestoread It's heavier, but less than most books. It doesn't bother me, but your experience could be different. Maybe find a friend who has one and try it out.
@@mdavidmullinsYes, the Scribe is larger and heavier. In my case larger hands adjust and continue with one-handed reading. Don’t know how this plays out with small hands… or orange hair.
@@spikedaniels1528 Orange Hair doesn't read, so I don't think it's a really a problem. If only … maybe he would learn a thing or two? Alas, we're not holding our breath.
The Kindle Scribe has competition from Kobo and Boox, and they have colour screens and you can use any software on the Boox.
I'm a book purist, I like the experience of reading a physical book, so most of my book purchases involve physical books. I do read books on my Kindle that are non-fiction, where I'm looking for the information, so its less about the experience & more about the information. Of course, there is a cost savings in reading books on Kindle. As I'm aging, I do appreciate that I can make the font as large as I need, so that's a plus. I do know that I enjoy the process more with a physical book & I seem to retain more info than with a Kindle.
As far as Amazon goes, I actually enjoy having Amazon suggest other books to me. It is interesting what books they think I might enjoy reading. I do buy used books off Amazon as well, so there are ways to mitigate costs as well. In terms of what I spend per year reading, since I have simple pleasures, reading is a well deserved luxury.
What’s the Amazon used book marketplace like? Is it generally a good experience?
@@saintdonoghueoh I can actually answer that, about as reliable as ebay listings with stock images-if you want a cheap reading copy and you don’t mind getting a random edition (and condition! Though usually they are at least acceptable, sometimes surprisingly good!) it’s fine!
It’s mostly the usual suspects as far as seller’s go though-the same second hand warehouse stores you find in ebay etc as well, and it’s usually cheaper to go to their actual websites to get stuff, they have offers and so forth.
I don’t see much of individual sellers on amazon any more, they really nuked their secondhand market years ago, back in the early 2010s amazon was awesome for secondhand books, the recommendations actually worked, no ads, cheap! I discovered Norman Spinrad through the recommendations back than, and I don’t remember how many other writers…
@@saintdonoghue Yes, the Amazon used book experience is good. Depending on the book, there are usually multiple Sellers, so one can select the books based not just on price but satisfaction rating of said Sellers. At present, I am buying books on Silent Films, so none of these are on Kindle. I was quite happy with the autobiography of Silent film star Colleen Moore that was published in 1969. It was a library discard from the Univ. of Winnipeg & appears to have not been read in all those years due to the lack of wear on pages and it's excellent binding. I've also bought used books on E-Bay & that's a hit or miss in terms of conditions of books.
Have to begrudgingly admit I’m agreeing with you more and more… I got a bunch of Feist’s books on a deal (the editions with a nice cover) and I ended up reading the ebook for magician over the paper copy…(mostly because I really don’t like the typeface, and it’s near mint I don’t want to break the spine, the gutters are non-existent…. but it’s only the first book, I think for the rest I would prefer reading the paper version).
Byw I have the cheap kobo, it’s great, and I really don’t mind that it’s slow, it feels refreshing in a way to have a piece of technology that is only good for one thing and feels a bit…retro in a way?
Definitely dislike the amazon ecosystem, mostly because they consistently make the customer experience worse across the board for no discernible reason, a lot of the changes they have made are obviously counter productive and stupid, eg. forcing one entry for ALL editions of a book!!!
I agree: the slowness of some e-readers can actually feel pleasingly retro!
I owned an oasis and loved it, it was enough at the time, it was poor on battery, needed charging a lot. Thank you for your video informative and refreshing from the usual. I have sight issues so enjoy audio books on the kindle as it is so light weight. For me I love to use Amazon as I cannot drive it has helped and is helping me immensely.
I have a Kobo and Kindle device but haven't used either in about a year. The reason is I find they are very sluggish due to the e-ink technology. Also they are more cumbersome to simply flip through as you can easily do with a real paper book. It simply takes longer to find a certain paragraph you read a half hour ago in a kindle than it would take you with a paper book.
See, I’ve had the opposite experience! Yes, just randomly paging through a book is more cumbersome on an e-reader, but finding things? To me, that’s much, much easier on an e-reader.
I’m an outlier. I could care less about not owning my books. I’m not a rereader, typically. And I never spend more than $2 for an ebook. I also use Libby a lot. And I can afford to rebuy a book 10 years from now in the unlikely event that a book is no longer in my ebook library and I want to reread it and it’s not in Libby.
I got my first kindle along with the free electronic kindle on my lapttop, so I could get gutenberg books. Lots of them. I do get more recent ebooks, the kind you have to pay for from Amazon, but love paper books.
"charging a king's ransom" 😂😂 I'm gonna use that
I need to use my Kindle a little more than I have since I got it last year. I have used the app on my phone before that and had no issues with reading or getting books for it other than laughing at the paperback price on amazon being a little cheaper than the kindle price but would get the e-book anyway as it's more covenant in that it doesn't take up space on a shelf and can read anytime anywhere.
I can see though where Olly is coming from with trying to use other e-book options other than Kindle and Amazon. But like you said there's not much we can about Amazon so might as well make the most of it while we can until everything collapse around us.
I have a Kindle Paperwhite and love it! I also love going to bookstores and buying physical book, but when I have the choice of reading a physical book or ebook I almost always choose the ebook because of the convenience, lighting being the biggest factor. The closest bookstore to me is 52 miles away. Ebooks make the most sense for me as a consumer and Amazon has the best consumer experience. I don’t feel like a victim.
Your closest bookstore is 52 miles away???? Good Lord!
I have had a KIndle since 2008, and I love it. I have had to downsize, and I have very little room for book shelves. I had to donate around 3,000 books to friends, Goodwill, etc. I have been able to replace most of those books with ebooks. I now have complete works of classic authors that I would not have been able to buy physically. For example: Arthur Conan Doyle, Anthony Trollope, Dickens, Keats, Wordsworth. Some of the files have 200 works in them for $1.99. I would never be able to collect all of Doyle's works (in fact, I don't know that they are all available to buy in the physical format for $1.99). Yes, some books are more expensive than they used to be.
I got myself a new kindle basic at Christmas and have loved it so far, apart from a single issue that might be unique to me. When I hold mine with one hand, my finger doesn’t touch the power button, but it does cover the usb port. This causes the device to trigger the moisture sensor, which displays a pop up and kicks me out of my reading groove.
I agree with Ollie’s points about Amazon, but I don’t interact with their store at all and keep all my ebooks backed up on my computer, so it doesn’t affect me all that much.
the kindle edition of Stephen Kings Carrie has had an offensive racial word removed recently. editing purchased books is a betrayal. he wrote what he wrote and should own it.
@@ingridfitz5677 No you can set it to block auto-updates, and then you can manually approve them or not.
I tend to read genre fiction on my Kindle. If it's a book I love, I will buy a physical copy. If it's for studying or concentrating, I'll also buy a physical copy. But I read my Kindle a fair bit, and it's very transportable.
However, my Kindle, which was a gift 10 or 12 years ago (a Kindle touch, maybe?) died this afternoon.
So now I'm swithering about what to do. I have a Kindle Fire and I'm reading my book on that, but the screen is a bit shiny for me (a problem I also had with my I-pad - now 12 years old, and increasingly inclined to just go in a huff and switch off if I try to do anything with it).
So now, I'm asking myself, do I want to spend £85 for the cheapest available Kindle? Why is it so expensive anyway? And how can new Kindle e-books cost as much as a paperback?
As for the ethics of Amazon - I know they were paying their authors more in royalties than traditional publishing houses, though that may have changed.
As for the book removal/alteration issue: wasn't there a story in the early days of the Kindle that Amazon had a dispute with Collins the publisher, and overnight readers lost their Collins' ebooks? I've not been able to verify that on my search engine, although a bot did offer to sell me an Amazon, and another offered to find me great deals on buying Collins.
I don't own multiple Kindles. I tend to find technology I like, and take care of it so it lasts me a long time. Partly through frugality, and partly because I know when I need to renew something it will be "upgraded", and I'll need to relearn how to use it.
I don't have that problem with physical books!
A) what about the second-hand market, for a replacement basic Kindle? I bet you could find one for $30! And B) is “swithering” really a word? if so, I’m in LOVE and must start using it!
@@saintdonoghue I hadn't thought of a 2nd hand market, which is odd because I always buy pre-owned I-phones. I will definitely look into that.
And yes, "swithering" is a word, meaning to hesitate or be indecisive. I was surprised, on checking my dictionary, to see it is a specifically Scottish word, but it's certainly one I've heard all my life. I'm delighted to have brought it to your notice!
I looooove my Kindle Paperwhite. I am an oddball in that I don’t want physical books piling up. Only physical books I own is House of Leaves and S. I also like that I’m paying less than I would for a physical book. I gilded the lily and bought this little, lap beanbag called a Bookaroo which holds the Kindle perfectly and almost never have hold it in my hand! 😄 Recently read The Count of Monte Cristo. Can’t imagine holding that book!
I love being able to read the very large and heavy hardcovers that I have on the shelf on my ereader instead. I still enjoy collecting books, but I primarily read on my ereader.
I've acquired a collection of Kobo ereaders, although interestingly I tend to gravitate back to the smaller ones. I like the better battery life and the feel/portability (despite primarily reading at home).
I use my Kindle for about 95% of what I read. Cost wise it is less expensive then buying a hardback and I have options. I use Libby to get books from the library and Project Gutenberg has become a favorite. When I buy a paperback book it is usually a book I want to have long term, i.e. the Great Books of Western Civilization. Plus it is easy to travel using the kindle versus bringing 5 books in my luggage.
Amazon is no less evil than say apple! , they are very happy to sell you a device, but that device is never really yours, you can buy/rent books from amazon, but if you ever needed to get them physically, where are they?..amazon can take the books you buy from you at any time.
I have 3 working kindles, dating back to the keyboard edition, all are full of non purchased Amazon books, and that's how they will stay.
They are ereaders made for a purpose, so I will use them that way, rather than amazon dictating there terms & conditions to me or anyone I pass them onto.
My kindle paperwhite has reset on several occasions when it's been connected to wifi, every book has been wiped off the device, that's a disturbing feeling to know that every book I have on that device can be wiped clean remotely.
They took all my books and all my audible, still have Psych season 2 tho 😂
@@GodlySorrowandGrace😂
My first kindle was a kindle keyboard and I have never looked back. I now have a kindle scribe and a kindle oasis and love both for different reasons. I live in a country where our bookstores frankly sucks (we also don’t have public libraries) and i feel that is something that people don’t consider as much as they should, that amazon just makes everything more accessible. I do still buy physical books but that one is more vanity than anything else and i fully acknowledge that and address it by just buying books I love or think I would love.
You live in a country without public libraries???
I read books (except pdf) almost exclusively on Kindle. I do have a quirk, though. If I own a physical copy of the book, I will still follow my progress on the Kindle by using an actual bookmark in the physical book. I like that visual affirmation as opposed to the “63% read” notation in the bottom corner of the ebook. Thought you might get a chuckle.
Books are increasingly expensive these days and Kindle is no longer the cheaper alternative it was once purported to be. I own a basic Kindle that I occasionally use for harder to find (in-print) books via Project Gutenburg but 99% of my book purchases are second-hand tattered old things from charity shops or the used book shop in my city. As a matter of habit I no longer buy brand new from Waterstones or Amazon unless it's a cheap Dover or Wordsworth edition.
I have a Kindle Paperwhite that I never use. I got tired of the Amazon ecosystem. I then went to the Kobo Forma with page turning buttons which I really like. I rarely buy eBooks anymore, I mostly use it for Internet Archive books. Now I'm back to physical books being about 95% or what I read. I just turned 60 so it may be my age but I would just rather own a physical copy of the book.
I only read the physical books that are located in Steve's house. But I don't read the books - I only read Steve's annotations.
That’s the only worthwhile part, really!
Steve I think you’d love the Kindle Voyage - they don’t make them anymore (too expensive to manufacture) but if you can source a secondhand one I think you’d love it. It has a glass screen with smooth bezel, discreet haptic page turns should you choose to use them (instead of swipe or tap), the power button is on the back and it has auto brightness. Every time a new Kindle is released I’m tempted by the exciting and the new (I’d love a green signature edition Paperwhite, but the power button placement is a definite no-no), however, when I compare the specs the Voyage is always better - mine is still going strong after almost 10 years.
The Kindle Voyage! I’ve never heard of it, and now I want to try one!
Put the feelers out to your subs - you never know you might receive one in the mail
I must be a hopeless Luddite. I go to the library, borrow a book I want to read, read said book, return it and repeat.
I just bought a kindle, but i got it mostly to read library books on. If im only borrowing the book anyway, i dont want to pay for it, and then repurchase the physical copy
I read both, but electronically much more frequently.
I still don’t own any e-reader, although I have an iPad Mini with a few free e-books such as _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ and _The Time Machine._ I continue to be a paper book reader.
I'm already waiting to see if will bting out a colour e-ink Paperwhite in 2025. And I probably buy one in a heartbeat. If i had a quibble about the current PW is how sensitive the Screen is. I bought a Kobo Libra 2 for the page turn buttons to address this but after 6 months reading on the Libra 2 in using my PW more again. But accepting Epub is by far the biggest reason Amazon will continue to dominate the ereader market. Limiting earlier kindles to mobi was a dumb idea but they came to their senses. Now if my kindle had direct access to Google Drive, now that would be huge, i suspect it will with their colour e-ink device.
Yes indeed - that’s my main quibble too, on almost every e-ink device I’ve ever used: over-sensitivity of the screen, leading to many unwanted commands! Page-turn buttons and one outsized bezel tend to eliminate all of that -
Have you considered working in real estate, you really had me sold with your pitch :)
Hee - I only realized after the fact that I’d really let off a bit of pent-up irritation on the topic of gouging rents!
@@saintdonoghue I come for the booktalks but I stay for the rants :)
I have 3 kindles (paperwhite, oasis, & scribe) and 2 B&N nooks. I use them all because I have a different book on each device that I’m currently reading. I also have a physical personal library, and yes, I often have both the ebook and physical copies of the same book. Now I just “need”🤣🙄 the new color Kobo e-reader. I’m not a huge fan of a certain trillionaire, however Amazon is incredibly convenient.
But … But why would you ever get that new Kobo if you already have 5 e-readers?
@@saintdonoghue don’t worry I wouldn’t. It’s just all of the hype and unboxing videos on RUclips make me a little curious, but the last thing I need is yet another e-reader. In my defense of my overconsumption the only one I bought for myself was the oasis, the others were gifts.
This whole discussion is ridiculous. I’ve been purchasing Amazon ebooks since 2011 and have never once had them removed or altered. You also cannot beat Amazons kindle ecosystem. They have the best selection of ebooks and it’s not even close. And they also make the best and most efficient ereaders. You and me and millions of others also use Apple products lol. Apple ain’t as greedy and evil as Amazon?? Give me a break. Of course they are. Olly looks like a fool. Look how many kindles he’s bought over the last few years lol.
In addition, Amazon partners with libraries through Libby to check out all books for free!
Oh come on now! He doesn’t look like a fool at all - like a great many other people (including me), he’s fascinated both by new gadgets and by the prospect of an ideal e-reading experience - that combination is bound to lead to a bunch of devices around the house. That doesn’t mean he can’t have second thoughts about continuing to pump money into Amazon’s pockets, right? I think the discussion is fascinating!
@@saintdonoghue oh stop! He does look like a fool. All he does is virtue signal now and it’s becoming unbearable to watch. But you should pay him to become a member of his channel 👍🏼
@@NerdishlyActive Virtue signal??? Are we talking about the same channel? I've never noticed it, and I'm pretty sensitive - even over-sensitive! - to such things.