I've been shopping for books on Amazon quite a bit recently. I've noticed in the searches lately that a majority of links are defaulting to audio or Kindle editions of books. By "a lot", I mean most. At first I brushed this off as a marketing decision: Kindle books are selling at a higher rate, or they are trying to push for increasing use of Kindle, blah blah blah.
But then it occurred to me, after thinking about some of the censorship issues, that this is going to create quite a predicament given sufficient time. Digitizing all of our books and giving ownership of that property to a monopolistic company to completely control distribution and access to.
It got me thinking, especially considering the "dot com" bubble in the 90s, and how several key companies (the monsters of today) escaped that crash, and why these companies are so heavily subsidized by to the government - to the extent that there isn't much practical separation between federal and private interest. Amazon utilizes the US postal service's infrastructure and manpower for Gods sake.
It might be too paranoid, but just look at the trajectory with respect to books. Traditional publishing is dying overall, perhaps not in certain niches. It just seems apparent we've got a situation as it concerns books and Amazon is apparently pushing heavily for you to start accepting digital books, and for your access to them to be subscription as a service at some point.
SearchVoatBot ago
This submission was linked from this v/whatever submission by @Delacourt.
Posted automatically (#45526) by the SearchVoat.co Cross-Link Bot. You can suppress these notifications by appending a forward-slash(/) to your Voat link. More information here.
TheKalergiFan ago
No. Just buy the books
Darwinxmachina ago
Additionally, it can take weeks to get a used hardcopy book through Amazon. This adds to the suspicion. That their original service is now... junk.
chirogonemd ago
I've noticed this as well. Everything points to the fact they are actively discouraging people getting physical copies of books. It's not that they are turning away that business. Certainly not. They'll take your money if all you want is a hard copy. It just concerns me that they are nudging the trend a certain way until the public accepts books as a subscription service and we are all paying just to read "our" books. I mean they probably won't even allow local download, or do like they do now with some proprietary file format meant for their reader.
It's just not good. We need to stock up on physical copies of books. Like, now.
SearchVoatBot ago
This submission was linked from this v/WhatYouMissed submission by @virge.
Posted automatically (#45285) by the SearchVoat.co Cross-Link Bot. You can suppress these notifications by appending a forward-slash(/) to your Voat link. More information here.
13445123751 ago
I bought a Kindle in 2014 but after a few years, I realised that I missed holding a real physical book in my hands. I only use it to buy books I don't really care about, like popular novels, which is still very rare.
We have to realise that anything that you buy that isn't physical can be taken away from at any time. There was a big controversy recently in my country about a modern horror retelling of Hansel and Gretel which is part of a series called The Forbidden Tales. At the beginning of the book, the representations of Hansel and Gretel live in a shitty urban appartement where they are constantly abused by their alcoholic father. Things start to really go to shit when the author graphically describe the father anally raping his little boy. Long story short, some cunt who is a teacher was very offended by that so she complained to the police that the guy was writing child porn, which is completely fucking ridiculous. The retailers fucking Shoah'd the book out of history. I was lucky enough to know a friend who already owned a physical copy so I could read the damned thing out of curiosity (it is really bad by the way, like 50 Shades of Grey bad).
Point is, if I had that in my Kindle, Amazon could have just removed it from my library without my consent because it is always connected to the internet.
jonnyquest ago
Buy the physical copy; ditch your kindle until there's a better way (digital copies should come free w/ physical ones, but that's another story).
Don't forget -- Just about anyone who has ever been anyone worth remembering has/had their own private library -- there's probably a good reason for this.
chirogonemd ago
Totally agree with this. We need to start building our libraries of physical books. There may be a day in the future - perhaps not so far - where you can't get physical books anymore. And I've no confidence whatsoever in Amazon's ability to objectively "curate" literary history. We'll no doubt see the elimination of a ton of valuable writing from our past, and in the present.
aGameCalledCountries ago
Download Tor and use Imperial Library of Trantor or Z Library.
Saturday405 ago
You have some valid points. While digital is easier to deal with I have to wonder if there's been any editing done to the original text by the Ministry of Truth.
DishingShitLikeA ago
Oh for sure. That's not even a question.
ratsmack ago
Control over what you "own" is the goal... It's pretty much the same with music.
Zoldam ago
Communism 101