• BlueTardis@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      I am getting prompts from the script for “Your Amazon Oath”

      Any idea where I can actually find/download this ?

  • TommySoda@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The optimist in me says they’re doing this to avoid piracy.

    The pessimist in me says they’re doing this so they can purge books because of the Trump administration.

    Either way, I can’t say I’m a fan.

    • AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      The optimist in me says they’re doing this to avoid piracy.

      Won’t pirates just buy their source copies on a different platform, so now Amazon loses the original sale as well?

      • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        The “original sale” in that case is not even pennies. So… not sure why amazon would care?

        Also: Many smaller authors basically depend on kindle because of the ease of use of the web portal and incentives to do larger discounts for their audiences. One of my favorite guilty pleasures has talked about exactly this (although he IS investigating alternatives).

        And, much like with video games: The Sandersons of the world will be pirated. MAYBE a Dalglish will be too. But nobody cares enough to go after a Samphire or Shel.

  • the16bitgamer@programming.dev
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    5 months ago

    Good news is that there are alternative ways to download these books from Amazon for backup purposes. It’s not as straightforward but it’s doable.

    That said I will be refusing to buy from any storefront that doesn’t offer a way to download my books. Even adobe digital editions is a viable alternative.

    • hsakaa@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Just pirate them at this point instead of giving your money to predatory companies lol

  • rouroborous@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    Iquit on Kindle a few years ago. The publicationsI read, like Asimov’s Sci Fi, no longer publish via Kindle. I use Book Funnel, Kobo, Pocket Book and store books on my desktop’s drive.

  • Teknikal@eviltoast.org
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    5 months ago

    I’m actually suprised Google never went and made an reader they already have the store and software. Kobo does the job for me anyway though.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      100%. I have always pirated, but the amount of things I pirated went way, way down when Netflix had a decent library of things to watch and was affordably priced.

      • Scrollone@feddit.it
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        5 months ago

        I stopped pirating altogether thanks to Spotify, Netflix and Steam.

        But now I’ve cancelled Netflix and I have a 24 TB NAS filled with movies

  • kava@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Get an old Kindle. The new ones make it hard for you to connect to your computer. They require you to download a “convenient” piece of software meant to allow you to transfer files. But conveniently it also makes it so you can’t transfer files easily without it.

    Even just a couple of years back you could plug in your Kindle to your computer through a USB and just drag and drop files. It only reads the proprietary .mobi format but Calibre, an excellent piece of software, will automatically convert .epub files to .mobi for you and it has a great algorithm.

    Then all you gotta do is look up whatever you want on libgen and for the price of one kindle you can have a virtually infinite library of books.

    I’ve actually had my first generation Kindle for about ~14 years now and my newer one for about ~3 years. I won’t ever buy a new one, but the ones from ~3 years ago are excellent pieces of hardware.

    You just have to disconnect it from the internet and never turn on the wifi. If you do, Amazon will fuck with your settings and make your life difficult.

    Basically, if you’re on a budget a used Kindle from ~3 years ago is a great choice in my opinion. If you want something new, stay far away from Amazon.

  • underfreyja@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Do yourself a favour, switch to Kobo or a third party ereader… Especially if you’re not in the US.

    • WideEyedStupid@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Yup, I’ve had my Kobo for quite a while now and I still love it. The push buttons are great, as pointed out by another poster, but also… I’ve just never had any issues with it. None whatsoever. I’m hoping this one will just never brick.

      About a month after I got mine, I bought the exact same one for my husband and he says his is still working like a charm as well! Now to be fair, I had never owned any other e-readers so I can’t really compare it to anything, but quality-wise I’d say they’re really good.

    • sunbytes@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      A whole new generation of the Kobo readers just came out too!

      I’ve got one of the previous Gen and I was so happy to find they have models with the clicky buttons to turn the page.

      • underfreyja@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Yeah I got the libra colour and it’s really great for the buttons. Didn’t really care about the colour part but the regular one was out of stock when I got it so I just went with it and I’m finding I enjoy it a lot. Especially when I read picture books for mt kid’s bedtime

    • fatalicus@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Why “especially if you’re not i the US”?

      I’m not in the US, and switched to kobo a couple of years ago, but i’ve had to keep buying books from amazon, sine the kobo store is just realy bad (missing a lot of books, even popular once), and there are few others who offer ebooks here.

      The quality of the devices seem not the greatest either.

      Bought a kobo libra first and it lasted just long enough for the warranty to expire before it just fully died. Replaced it with a kobo libra colour, and had to replace it three times before I got one that didn’t have pin holes on the screen where light shone through.

      Meanwhile my 9 year old kindle oasis works just fine, it has just gotten slow and the battery is worse, which is why I replaced it with kobo.

      • underfreyja@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Because supporting the US economy from outside of it right now is ludicrous and Amazon is a union busting mega corporation that destroy local economies…

        Now, I’m not a Kobo corporate shill, I don’t care which device you get, I did say there are other ereaders you can get, pick whatever you want. You don’t care about thr trade wars, you can get a Nook or Remarkable. You care but don’t like Kobo? You can buy an Onyx or another Chinese brand. You can use your phone, an old tablet whatever you want.

        Personally, I’ve never not found a book on kobo but if it happened and it wasn’t at my library, I’d find alternative to buying on amazon, I’d get it physical or find other ways to get it.

        You want to continue using amazon products and contribute to the success of Bezos and his billionaire friends, that’s your prerogative but a lot of us are not ready to do that for the sole sake of minor convenience.

  • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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    5 months ago

    This is what the class war looks like in nuts and bolts…

    Most idiots are not even aware of the original tragedy of the commons so they are doomed to be degraded into owning nothing and being happy to pay monthly fee to exist without as much as an objection.

    After all, a normie got nothing to hide!

  • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
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    5 months ago

    If only there were some way to get books to read in a format where a billionaire’s trillion dollar company can’t gatekeep them.

    Some sort of physical product, perhaps one made out of trees?

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      I recommend actually listening to some authors.

      The “gatekeeping” back in the days before ebooks was infinitely worse than it is now. These days? Basically anyone who can fill out a webform can publish a kindle book. And other stores aren’t much harder. And those ebooks can be sold indefinitely.

      Contrast that with needing to find a publisher who is willing to allocate some of their limited production time to you. And then hope that Borders et al are willing to put you on the shelf. And then realize that you are never getting another penny for that book because the first MMPB run ran out and you aren’t getting a second because you didn’t sell enough to justify it.

  • amos@mander.xyz
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    5 months ago

    resist.

    Stop buying whatever it is that Amazon/Meta/Google/Etc sell. They will not stand for you. They will not respect you.

    At some points, it may seem like they changed and that they are now good. They are not. They will never be. Resist them.