[adamparsons]

So you’re telling me you can give Amazon money for their closed book system, give them more money and they can just decide to take away “””your””” books you’ve bought over the years?

Can’t wait for the apologist to appear and explain why this is just totally fine

[Joeri]

Reminder: Amazon once secretly remotely wiped 1984 from people’s kindles.

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-ki...

You don’t actually buy digital books, you rent a restricted right to read for an unspecified duration. I think there should be legislation that sets a minimum standard for the rights people acquire when they “buy” a digital work.

[CapmCrackaWaka]

You know, for a while this seemed like a non-issue for me. I was naive. I just told myself "a company wouldn't do something like that, that's not how this stuff works". Boy was I wrong. 15 years ago I had nothing but glowing admiration for these large tech companies, now I avoid them at all costs. I pay for Kagi instead of using Google for free. I deleted my amazon account, and now just shop at normal retailers. It's not like the price is much different. I sold my Kindle, and just buy my books from Barnes and Noble. Oh, Netflix only has season 2 of Mr. Robot? Guess I'll just pirate that. I got rid of my Nest cameras (Google COMPLETELY ruined that product) and use Blue Iris locally now. Everything these companies touch turns to poison.

Unfortunately, for now I'm still stuck with google / apple maps and Gmail.

[bitexploder]

The convenience is great, but I agree. Age has taught me these giant tech companies cannot be stewards of knowledge. The public library system is incredibly important, and under political attack, alas that is a separate discussion. Regardless paper books are a great equalizer. Or companies accepting and ditching DRM. Regardless I have zero moral problems removing DRM from my book libraries on Kindle, etc.

[pettycashstash2]

It’s not just the giant companies. I had good experience with YI cameras from Kami and so I purchased about 7 of them. Suddenly they decided to go to a subscription model, and sent me an email

“After years of growing, we are at the point that our systems can no longer support free 6 second video storage for all our users”

I proceeded to remove the cameras and replaced them with on site NVR. After I did this I receive another email-

“ WE ARE SORRY.

Due to a system error, we sent you an email by mistake expressing that we will no longer support free 6 second video for the Yi/Kami Home app. Do not worry, you will still have this feature.”

Too late. I also find myself moving away from subscription based types of experience whenever I can, where the company can just remove feature or content at will. I wonder if there is a name in marketing circles for this behavior.

[CapmCrackaWaka]

In my mind, I stay away from subscriptions if there are any physical assets or up-front costs involved. Kagi is a good example of a reasonable subscription model. Up-front costs are where companies can really screw you and take advantage of the sunk cost fallacy. That's where I got screwed by Nest. I spent $400 on their cameras, which worked great until Google bought them. After that, no more free storage, the AI automatic object detection went to absolute crap, I have constant authentication issues where the original Nest account and the Google account keep signing each other out, and now I'm stuck with these cameras.

[j1elo]

Hi, I also have a Kami camera, and was entertaining the idea of going off the path with maybe an alternative provider, or just a self-hosted solution. Could you let me know about your new setup?

I was wondering if these cameras are locked-in with the Kami cloud vendor solution, or they use a standard protocol thus trivial to move to another provider, or just something in between those two extremes...

[pettycashstash2]

I went to the 4k wired nvr, by Lorex. Upgradebale self hosted etc. it came with 9 or 10 cameras but I only installed 5

[xigoi]

Ah yes, “system error”.

I'm sorry, this person stumbled and happened to land with their chest directly on the tip of my knife which I was holding in my hand.

[jrib]

I dropped gmail for fastmail when google originally threatened to drop the grandfathered g-suite plans. Has worked great for me.

[SanjayMehta]

I moved to Zoho from Gmail.

https://www.theverge.com/2014/12/28/7458159/encryption-stand...

[CapmCrackaWaka]

Ugh I tried to get off of Gmail and went to Kolab. That did not work for me at all. The formatting abilities were severely lacking. Maybe I'll try again since I've spent so much energy on this rant at this point.

[r3trohack3r]

I successfully migrated to ProtonMail using a strangulation pattern.

I set up a forwarding policy from GMail -> Protonmail. Whenever I would receive a forwarded email, Id go to the sender and update my email address. After about 6 months the only email coming from my Gmail account was spam.

Then I turned off my forwarding policy and noticed something: I don't really get spam anymore. I don't know what it is about Gmail but it receives several of orders of magnitude more spam than any of my other email accounts. To drive that point home, to crack down on spam, I setup my own domain on protonmail and configured a catch-all. Now everyone gets their own email address (like [e-mail]). It lets me reverse track who is sharing my personal info with who for marketing purposes. Turns out: in the 5 years I've been using Protonmail I've had two cases of someone sharing my email address. I had assumed all my spam was from people sharing my email - turns out it was just a Gmail problem.

If your experience ends up being the same as mine, the time you save not dealing with spam on Gmail will cover your migration costs.

[Multicomp]

I can confirm what this poster said about their business emails not actually getting shared around, but that spam just all goes to gmail... I did a very similar setup and got similar results, but I'm using FastMail, though I'm sure protonmail and mailbox.org would work for this, had I chosen them as well.

[uoaei]

Sending decrypted information over an encrypted line makes it relatively much easier to reverse-engineer the private key. If Google has, say, the contents of an email via GMail, and surveillance over the transmission line that carries the encrypted version of that, they would have not much trouble cracking your Protonmail key. It's unlikely that they would gain access to Protonmail's secure servers, but if they can surveil traffic going into and out of Protonmail's servers, they can decrypt the messages they know the keys for. They own more than a few installations and high-throughput (e.g. undersea) cables and it doesn't seem far-fetched to assume they have built systems for extracting information from the massive bitstreams, especially considering all we know about NSA surveillance programs.

[citiguy]

This is a great idea. I've been wanting to move off gmail for years, I'll try this. Thank you.

[raffraffraff]

I went to privateemail + k9. It's been fine.

[calvinmorrison]

fastmail is great. wish they had a platform for docs and sheets

[matkoniecz]

> for now I'm still stuck with google / apple maps

In many cases OSM-based solutions like Organic Maps or Mapy.cz are good enough (though for car navigation Google Maps is still clearly better).

[xigoi]

I'm pretty sure Mapy.cz have their own proprietary data.

[matkoniecz]

Terrain shape model is from elsewhere, but I bet that it is SRTM.

In Czech Republic they use data outside OSM, but last time I checked it was entirely/mostly data released by government of that country.

Roads, buildings, hiking trails, landuse, paths shops outside Czechia are from OpenStreetMap.

Can you give example of anything that is "their own proprietary data"? So far I have not noticed anything like that outside Czechia.

[xigoi]

In the Terms and Conditions, they list various different sources and give restrictions on what you can do with them. For example, it's illegal to make screenshots of 3D maps.

https://licence.mapy.cz/?doc=mapy_pu

[ThePowerOfFuet]

> Unfortunately, for now I'm still stuck with google / apple maps and Gmail.

Organic Maps.

Migadu or Fastmail.

You're not "stuck" with anything.

[password4321]

Uh, Organic Maps has live traffic?

[ThePowerOfFuet]

Where do you think the data for that live traffic comes from?

[ramses0]

RMS: "Right to Read" - https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html

[reset2023]

qwant is way better than google

[alexhsamuel]

Then how about banning the word "buy", and any other language that implies the transfer of property? The yellow button in the corner should say "Rent now a restricted right to read for an unspecified duration, which we may later modify... with 1-Click".

[brookst]

Should we eliminate the word “buy” from all licenses and rights-restricted transactions? So like concert tickets (you can’t take video at the concert), physical DVDs (you can’t stream them online for other people), airline tickets (airlines reserve all sorts of rights, and international treaties even more), and houses (even if you pay cash, the local government can take your property for a variety of reasons)?

The ambiguity in digital purchases is a real problem, but if physical goods and services haven’t solved the problem with the semantics of “buy”, I’m not sure that’s a productive approach, unless the idea is to just scare people away from digital specifically by implying it’s materially different than other transactions where “buy” does not mean “receive irrevocable and unrestricted exclusive rights forever”.

[yladiz]

I think there is a clear distinction to be drawn here, the simplest being around a physical object or not. Looking at films or music, if you own the physical media and it can’t just be taken away from you (especially if you use a form of the media that is not internet connected, like a cassette tape). Buying the digital version is basically buying a revocable right to watch/listen to the media, rather than the media itself, so I would agree that the term buy is kind of misleading given the implied meaning of the word when it comes to this kind of thing. As the other commenter points out, buying a concert ticket isn’t implying buying the whole concert, and no one would think so, which is unlike what people think when they “buy” a digital movie from Amazon or Apple.

[xigoi]

For tickets, the use is correct — you buy the ticket, the physical piece of paper, which gives you restricted access to a place.

[josh_fyi]

Yet strangely, the word "buy" is used in the Kindle store. Seems like straight up commercial fraud.

[patrec]

Incomprehensible to me that not a single country's courts put a stop to this. By now this “straight up commercial fraud” has become established industry practice and the corrupted meaning of “buy” (for “lease”) looks set to not only stay with us but gradually replace the old meaning in all walks of life as increasingly everything becomes “smart” (as the oft-quoted Ubik line goes: '“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.”'). I wonder both how far away we once were from some less dystopian alternative timeline and what the chances of escaping our current apparent trajectory are.

[andsoitis]

It is worth noting that when I buy a physical book, I am not acquiring ownership of the text. I do not have the right to do with the text what I please (e.g. make copies & distribute). The same goes for music. The same goes for software.

What the format (digital+DRM vs. physical) makes possible is more fine grained control by the owner (or their proxy) of the work.

[patrec]

You seem to imply that technological advances have made new forms of contractual agreements about property possible that are not covered well by existing concepts such as "buy" and "lease" and that therefore to extend the meaning of "buy" to cover app store or kindle purchases is reasonable rather than fraudulent.

What an app store or kindle "purchase" provides you with is exactly a lease. You gain a temporary right to utilize a resource (such as a particular physical or digital copy of a work) subject to various restrictions.

By contrast property rights always imply the ability to transfer (via sale, inheritance or gift or voluntary abandonment) as well as to in fact not transfer. Both of which are fundamentally lost here. You can't sell your kindle ebooks, pass them on to your children or even keep them if Amazon decides otherwise (as in the case of 1984).

And there is absolutely no technical or economic reason you can't inherit or sell a DRM protected work.

[dragonwriter]

> You seem to imply that technological advances have made new forms of contractual agreements about property possible that are not covered well by existing concepts such as “buy” and “lease” and that therefore to extend the meaning of “buy” to cover app store or kindle purchases is reasonable rather than fraudulent.

Nope, licenses as a form of intangible personal property long predate the “modern technological advances” being discussed (or, say, the existence of the US, for example), and the meaning of the word “buy” already encompasses buying licenses, which may have a variety of terms, including termination conditions.

It’s just that you seem to be trying to falsely generalize the specialized meaning of “buy” that applies when the object of the purchase is an item of tangible personal property to things which are not tangible personal property.

[vel0city]

It is not a lease though. A lease has a specified time. "Buying" in this context has an unspecified time. I have movies I "bought" on these platforms which have been accessible for well over a decade. If this was forced to be a lease which specified a time (say, 1 year? 5 years?) I would have already lost access to it, massively reducing its value to me.

[patrec]

Leases can be and not uncommonly are of unlimited or extremely long duration (e.g. till the leasee's death or exceeding a single human life span).

[vel0city]

Extremely long duration != unlimited. Stating "until this person's death" isn't unlimited, it is a very exact end condition which will happen.

A 99 year lease still has an end date on it. These licenses do not have an end date. The only time it is generally supposed to become unavailable is "due to potential content provider licensing restrictions or for other reasons."

https://www.primevideo.com/help?nodeId=202095490&view-type=c...

Buying a limited license which allows "an indefinite period of time" is still inherently different from renting. It is definitely different from buying a physical good, I do agree. But I still don't seem to be convinced that its "renting" or "leasing".

If Amazon had to put an end date ahead of time on all the movies they listed with "Buy", do you think they'd put that date as 99 years or would they make it more like one year? Personally I'm perfectly fine with the tradeoff that sure, some move I "bought" 15 years ago on Amazon might some day disappear from their service, as I knew it ahead of time that was the trade-off of "buying" a license on their Unbox service versus owning a physical copy of the VHS or DVD at the time. But in the end I felt it was worth the tradeoff for the connivence.

For all we know Amazon may continue on forever, offering some kind of version of its streaming service and continue to offer these movies forever. Its not guaranteed Amazon will lose the rights to some of these movies, its not guaranteed they'll stop offering a streaming service, its not guaranteed they'll eventually be replaced by Walmart which will buy out Weyland-Yutani. There's no real pre-defined end condition to it at all, other than until the rights holders say we can't or until some other situation happens that makes it unavailable.

Its definitely different than owning a physical good, I completely agree. Its still very different from renting or leasing.

[rpigab]

Related : "Games as a service is fraud" by Ross Scott

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/bhdkvo/comment/el...

[MonkeyClub]

Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right.

As OP said,

> I'm never buying e-books again.

I do something similar.

If the book is worth it, I buy it in material form.

If it’s not worth the bookshelf clutter it’ll cause, I just skip it.

But then again, most of my books aren’t on digital subjects, for that I usually rely on specs and articles, as tech is moving too quickly to be worth being nailed down on paper.

[LudwigNagasena]

> Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right.

Yeah, just like someone can "buy" an empty iPhone box on eBay for $800.

[dspillett]

Those listings are usually honest. Misleading, yes, but nowhere in them does it state you are buying anything other than a box. The even more misleading ones, helped by the product name, are selling x-box boxes.

I'd argue that the “buy now” when viewing a Kindle edition listing, or Audible edition, is noticeably less honest, especially as you are usually at most on click away from the dead-tree editions where buy actually does mean buy. I'd have that iphone box that I'd legally bought for as long as I choose to own it, the seller can not revoke access to it arbitrarily like Amazon can, will, and sometimes has (1984 being the most famous and somewhat ironic example) with ebooks and audiobooks.

[puffoflogic]

PSA that audible encryption can be stripped very easily with ffmpeg (`-activation_bytes`; for archival and interop purposes, naturally), and it's faster and easier to crack your personal encryption key than to figure out how to request it from audible servers.

[eldaisfish]

What you describe is a lease. Leasing or renting specifically grants you the right to use something for a period of time without a transfer of ownership. If Amazon are leasing you a book, labelling the button "Buy" is fraud. The problem here is that trade laws were not written for digital-only items so Amazon and their ilk get away with this fraud.

[vel0city]

> Leasing or renting specifically grants you the right to use something for a period of time without a transfer of ownership.

What's the stated time period here? 1 year? 5 years?

It is an indeterminate amount of time. It is not a lease.

[garbagecoder]

This is so incredibly wrong I have to comment. Most people's leases roll over into month-to-month. You can easily add clauses to say it goes on for an unlimited time until someone revokes.

[TheCoelacanth]

So, it's even less rights than a lease because you could lose it at any time, you aren't even guaranteed to keep it the full term of a lease.

[xigoi]

The period of time is “until they decide they don't want to lease you the book anymore”.

[_Algernon_]

> Eh, one “buys” the right to temporarily have the item on their device, until Amazon decides to revoke that right.

By that definition of "buy" renters are home owners.

[bumby]

>renters are home owners.

No, they are lease buyers. The lease (like the e-book purchase) is a right to use for a period of time. It's not equivalent to ownership.

(That's not to say I don't think the practice by Amazon is bad)

[ryanbrunner]

Especially on Amazon, I don't think this holds muster when "buying" on Kindle is listed directly next to other options which are genuinely purchasing a book with nothing to differentiate that the Kindle one is not actually a purchase of a book.

[dragonwriter]

> Yet strangely, the word “buy” is used in the Kindle store.

You can buy a license with specific terms, including termination conditions. This…long predates digital anything.

[f1shy]

I wonder if somebody will file a class action... if it didn't happened yet, is maybe because some obscure corner of the law is on their side...

But seems strange that it is legal.

[cogman10]

The issue in the US is harm has to be done first and the compensation is based on the harm done.

You are only harmed when amazon loses rights to media you purchased and that harm is easily measured in terms of the monetary value of the thing they took from you (which, they'll likely refund if you start talking to lawyers because it's not worth it to them.)

What we need is to get corporations out of politics.

[garbagecoder]

"In the US." Not in California. Google B&P 17200.

[cogman10]

Perhaps I'm missing something [1]

I don't read anywhere in here where an unaffected individual can raise a case and collect money. Rather, this sets up how the government can enforce the law at various levels. That's pretty standard stuff everywhere (that's why every state has a department of justice). The government can police, but me, and average citizen, can't raise a case against amazon.

Class action lawsuits are civil lawsuits. You can't raise a civil lawsuit if you aren't harmed.

[1] https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2010/bpc/17200-17210...

[LudwigNagasena]

There absolutely should be a legal clarification of what "buy" means with respect to digital goods. And then fine everyone who uses "buy" instead of "license" for false advertising.

[patentatt]

Or just "rent" because that seems pretty close to the reality of the situation. Just have the rental term be long, and have it 'renew' for free. I'd be ok with that.

[vel0city]

> Or just "rent" because that seems pretty close to the reality of the situation.

Rent has a defined time period. Buying a license in this case has an indeterminate time period. Buying a license is still very different from renting or leasing it.

[quesera]

Some rental agreements include automatic renewal unless cancelled by either party.

So, a rental agreement for a defined period (very short, instantaneous even), with automatic renewal.

[pixxel]

> A company called MobileReference, who did not own the copyrights to the books 1984 and Animal Farm, uploaded both books to the Kindle store and started selling them. When the rights owner heard about this, they contacted Amazon and asked that the e-books be removed. And Amazon decided to erase them not just from the store, but from all the Kindles where they'd been downloaded. Amazon operators used the Kindle wireless network, called WhisperNet, to quietly delete the books from people's devices and refund them the money they'd paid.

I’m adding this detail because it’s not as sinister as you alluded.

You are correct with regard to renting, not buying. This is why I only buy paper books (with cash), and grab the corresponding digital version from the high seas.

[ensignavenger]

Hogwash, the button on Amazon.com is clearly labelled "Buy". Amazon trying to take away something you have clearly bought is theft and fraud, and should be prosecuted as such.

[nulbyte]

> You don’t actually buy digital books...

From Amazon and the likes, no, not usually. But there are some sites that offer DRM-free copies to buy, rather than perpetually rent.

Even on Google Play, authors/publishers can choose to go DRM-free. You can download those copies without having to be tied to the Google app. Sadly, however, I don't recall Google making it clear which ones were DRM-free before making a purchase.

[rootusrootus]

> You don’t actually buy digital books, you rent a restricted right to read for an unspecified duration.

Which is fine, as long as you know that going in and set your price expectations accordingly. If those terms are unacceptable, walk away. If you do decide it's worth it, keep a backup with the rest of your digital data.

[turminal]

It's not fine, it's precisely the kind of thing that needs to be regulated because the average consumer is not capable of understanding the non-obvious long term consequences.

[Robotbeat]

It’s not just “not understanding,” it’s a massive revocation of rights that consumers enjoyed with physical goods. That needs to be changed. If you buy a digital good, it’s yours. You own it, are able to resell it, and no later revocation of rights by media conglomerates should be allowed to change that.

[MonkeyClub]

Exactly, it’s a play on a metaphor people know (“I bought a book”), yet one that’s doesn’t really apply (we “buy” nothing, it’s just revocable access).

So it’s ever so slightly fraudulent.

[thecrash]

It's fine that the bar could occasionally serve you poisoned whiskey, as long as you know that going in. If those terms are unacceptable, walk away. If you do decide it's worth it, keep a friend with poison antidotes close at hand at all times.

[ryanbrunner]

I don't think that a reasonable person would assume that Amazon can and will (as evidenced by the OP) remove your entire library at their sole discretion.

[rootusrootus]

So improve the documentation then so it's more clear what you're getting. Instant access to a digital version of a book, for a non-expiring rental, from an organization that could go defunct in the future. It does not have a perfect analogy in the physical world.

[xigoi]

> from an organization that could go defunct in the future.

If only there was a way to preserve digital data even if the company you got it from no longer exists…

[sidlls]

This isn't fine, because the language used in the purchase is "buy", not "rent". People buy these e-books thinking it's the same as buying a physical book, except they can read it on their e-reader. It's deliberately misleading on the part of the sellers.

[rootusrootus]

There is no perfect analogy though, it is not the same as renting either. It is buying, with an asterisk. The company could go defunct. We can regulate the bit about their ability to revoke access to digital goods already purchased, but it's tough to do anything about the company itself going tits up.

I just treat it as a open end rental. The ability to revoke my access to the book lowers the value. The ability to instantly get the book in seconds adds to the value. I keep my expectations clear from the beginning.

Yes, we can argue that regular people are just too stupid to understand that. I don't really agree with that attitude.

[TheCoelacanth]

Any company using the word "buy" for DRM-encumbered media should be required to put keys in escrow so that the DRM can be removed if the company fails to permanently maintain access.

We shouldn't let marketers tell outright lies just because regular people are smart enough to recognize them for lies.

[rootusrootus]

I don't disagree. My Kindle books are DRM free already as delivered by Amazon. If they were encumbered, I'd add that to my list of 'things which would reduce the value to me.' So I just back up the data.

[jl6]

I don’t think it’s fine at all, but the reason it’s allowed to happen is that they aren’t “your” books - what you’ve bought (or been tricked into buying) is a license, and that license comes with terms and conditions, including the right to revoke the license, which usually means you must remain in good standing with your new ebook feudal lord.

Personally I think ebook vendors should be required to use language that makes it transparent that what you are buying is a kind of contract, which is different to a physical book in several important ways.

[Sakos]

Personally, I think we need more protections for consumers. Either that license must be perpetual and unrevocable and grant far more rights than it does, or licenses should be abolished for proof of ownership for a digital copy. Real ownership, not some weird license that isn't even worth the paper it's printed on.

Corporations (at least in Europe) aren't allowed to make you sign away your rights. I don't see why it should be any different for ebooks.

[machina_ex_deus]

Just imagine what it would be like if everything worked with the same design.

You would own nothing and be happy...

[honkler]

Found you, Mr Schwab

[bambax]

I still buy Kindle books on Amazon occasionally, but immediately try to remove DRM and turn them into regular epub files in Calibre. It works 95% of the time. When it doesn't work I return them, and get 100% refund. It's an acceptable compromise.

[bogomipz]

Can Calibre deal with the newer Amazon DRM? I was under the impression that it could not at some point. Admittedly I haven't looked at either in years though so maybe that changed?

[themadturk]

It can if you are using an old-enough version of the Kindle reader app. Using an older version will allow you to download a copy of the file that lacks the latest protection scheme.

To try to prevent this, Amazon tries very hard to make sure you download and install the latest version of the Kindle app.

[crayonviking]

This is the way.

[daveslash]

This reminds me of "The Books Will Stop Working" [0] (2019).

  "Reminded that the Microsoft ebook store closes next
   week. The DRM'd books will stop working. 

   I cannot believe that sentence.

   "The books will stop working."

   I keep saying it and it sounds worse each time."

~ Rob Donoghue

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20297331

[Yizahi]

You can also wipe your own library in the Amazon account permanently and without any refunds. Or the hacker can do it in a few minutes if your simple 1fa password is compromised. I still use Amazon for books, because really there is nothing like their selection + Kindle, but not because I like them.

[Zvez]

I don't get this argument. You can burn your house, but it doesn't mean you should live in a hotel.

The difference is that while I can do it by mistake, Amazon can do it intentionally.

[Yizahi]

I consider this approach by Amazon insecure. I would much prefer that my purchases be purchased and not possible to delete using a single button in the interface. For example like Steam library. This forces me to treat my account as already lost and it is rather frustrating. I can't buy books proactively, I can't buy games or music there etc.

By the way, when I first stepped in this landmine and went to complain on Amazon forum, regular people also defended this practice. It was even more mindboggling than Amazon actions itself. Like, why would people voluntarily defend strictly negative to them feature, and for free?..

[delecti]

I'm not going to say it's "totally fine", but surely you can see why it's reasonable for them to detect the situation as suspicious. It's unclear whether OP was using a new or established account, but in either case they suddenly started adding multiple credit cards, each only for a single transaction. It's also unclear how many ebooks OP was trying to buy, but "so I started buying them one by one" certainly implies that OP added at least a half-dozen separate new cards in the span of a a few minutes.

[QuizzicalCarbon]

This is how digital goods are “sold” (leased is more accurate), it isn’t an Amazon issue or an e-book issue. You’re leasing access to digital goods, not owning them. It’s much larger and broader than that. That’s why it’s always a good idea to download digital goods and keep them on your own device and not in the cloud on a retailer’s server.

[PurpleRamen]

This is no news, and not limited to kindle. All digital goods can be gone the moment a company decides to wipe your account. Books, videos, music, apps...they all can be lost at any given time for whatever reason. There is no law protecting you anywhere in the world, at the moment, AFAIK. IIRC there are laws made at EU-level at the moment, so European might have some protection in some years. Also, depending on your country, you might be able to sue a company for compensation, but this is not fast and cumbersome.

> Can’t wait for the apologist to appear and explain why this is just totally fine

Obviously this is beneficial for the economic, because you will replace the lost goods and buy the important ones again. This will drive the numbers to signal bestsellers, and let unimportant ones dwindle into oblivion, or so...

[uni_baconcat]

As Amazon announced Kindle services will be shutdown in China, they informed that all your books will not be downloadable after close. Books will be readable if you keep it in your original kindle devices. They won’t provide DRM-free books you purchased even before server shutdown.

[jlarocco]

Maybe because it doesn't really happen? I've been buying ebooks on Amazon from the beginning. Never had one disappear. I know it can, but in practice it's not a concern.

YMMV, if it doesn't work for you, don't shop there.

It's funny that techies, of all people, don't realize online digital content doesn't last forever. We helped build the system, and now we have to live with it.

[CapmCrackaWaka]

> It's funny that techies, of all people, don't realize online digital content doesn't last forever.

We undoubtedly do realize this, but underestimated the degree to which companies would use this to siphon as much money out of the consumer as they theoretically could. It has made for many aggravating experiences, and ruined a lot of products that used to work perfectly.

[austinjp]

I kinda think you're missing a point: the viability of your "books" is not under your control.

[jlarocco]

No, I see it very well.

Looking at the bigger picture, very few things in life are under my control, and on the long list of things out of my control, this is a relatively minor, hypothetical problem.

[austinjp]

Then a further point being: it's not hypothetical. "Books" have "stopped working", see other comments. Whether you have or have not personally experienced this doesn't alter the reality.

If this is a "minor problem" for you, why comment?

If others here clearly feel it's more of a major issue, perhaps you'd benefit from seeking to understand why. Personally, I find it disturbing in several ways. The consolidation of editorial control in the hands of tech-oligarchs; the resultant de facto sterile homogeneity of expression; the ditching of customers en masse without recourse; the erosion of ownership and the expansion of eternal rental of anything and everything; on and on it goes.

[latexr]

> Can’t wait for the apologist to appear and explain why this is just totally fine

Could we avoid bait comments? They create unnecessary polarisation which is bad for everyone. We should strive for productive discussion which allows us to learn, not to shun the “other side” and start a flamewar before the conversation even begins.

[barneygale]

Highlighting that HN is awash with corporate apologists _is_ a productive discussion. Far more productive than the apologists usually impose.

[the_af]

Is it awash in this case though? Very rarely have I read comments on HN in favor of DRM and restricting users' rights.

In fact, HN in this sense is a bubble where people seem to agree with me on this issue, often misleading me into the belief most people are aware about the war on users' rights...

[sebastialonso]

Have the same feeling, which of course might not accurately reflect reality. But boy, this place can really make people force that "pristine me vs unethical you all" spirit.

Just think about it, GP preemptively felt the need to shame virtual users having a different opinion.

[wahnfrieden]

information and art should be free, and authors and artists should be entitled to decent living

[swarnie]

Those two statements can't be reconciled in any viable society.

[xtracto]

They can and should. Every time this discussion comes up in HN I describe how this could be viable. In the past it was done through something called patronage: a rich guy paid an artist for a painting or art piece.

Nowadays with crowdfunding a writer could be paid by wannabe readers before the book is published, and only publish when he has obtained a FAIR compensation for his time working writing said book.

[Yizahi]

That would fail spectacularly.

Kickstarters only work for known authors, so the newcomers would be excluded automatically from the beginning, but we consumers won't feel this for a few years.

Then it will stop being a novelty and hip thing to do (in about a week, given current attention economy), and the money streams will start to dry out, while the number of kickstarters will only increase while every existing author will switch to it.

Then Kickstarter itself and other portals will start promoting "better" authors, making it a sort of an unofficial ranked contest. Promoting will be based on different metrics, fairly as far as reviewers will think. Mostly it will be based on popularity and track record of previous products of those authors.

So the motivation to be seen on top (which equals - seen at all, due to the number or creators), will be releasing popular and catchy products, and as often as possible to generate a track record of good releases.

Over a few years this will shift people to create a common as possible popular and simple products, mandatory oriented on kids and ya because that's a gigantic market, so the lowest common denominator products will be the most successful and popular.

And so all kickstarter money, slowly drying out because more and more people will be tired of seeing this clown show and paying for inferior products, will be even further concentrated at the top kicktarting creators, while leaving "long tail" with zero money. Also audience will shift, while adults will stop participating in general, their kids will participate and will fund whatever is most flashy and predatory.

Thus this perpetual machine will go on in circles eventually producing only garbage.

[sokoloff]

There are undoubtedly creators who are operating on that model today. (Many Kickstarters for content, board games, etc would qualify I think.)

It seems like most are not using that model. Maybe it’s not lucrative enough; maybe they’re not aware of the possibility.

[marssaxman]

Of course they can. Step 1: institute a basic income for authors and artists. Step 2: abolish copyright laws.

(To simplify step 1, you could skip the thorny problem of defining who an "author" or an "artist" is by instituting a universal basic income.)

[hunter2_]

But then attempts at supplementing that basic income with additional income -- i.e., gainful (self-)employment -- won't include being an author or artist. People wanting to do those things would be incentivised to do other things instead. People interested in living on exclusively the basic income while watching most other people live on that plus optional income would be few, I think.

[nerdbert]

You don't think anyone would hire a band to play an event, or a muralist to paint a wall?

[hunter2_]

Yes, but I meant people primarily interested in making things that are readily copyable. We can just as easily say being interested in that is an obsolete mindset without also saying basic income goes hand-in-hand.

[wahnfrieden]

step 1 can encompass all people. lots of people with idle time choose to do art and not only for profit, this is very common and many of our valued cultural products have come from those kind of conditions (which no longer exist like they did in places such as england).

[swarnie]

> Step 2: abolish copyright laws.

I thought we were talking about viable societies?

How can you expect any form of R&D investment if the investor can't expect to see an ROI? Sounds great if you want to stagnate but personally i dont.

[marssaxman]

Are you perhaps thinking about patents?

If not, could you explain where you see a connection between copyright and R&D?

[wahnfrieden]

you're repeating political rhetoric saying that advancement is exclusively achievable through capitalist investment. and no i'm not talking about communism either.

[jfengel]

It should work with a universal basic income. Everyone has enough to eat and a place to live. Then you price your efforts based on not needing a subsistence. It would make it easier to dismiss the notion of intellectual property, since you no longer need to artificially limit copying so that creators could survive.

They'll probably want some kind of job to afford art supplies, but it's an option rather than a mandate.

This is oversimplified, of course, but it doesn't seem fundamentally impossible.

[patentatt]

The limited monopoly isn't just for survival though, it's supposed to be an incentive.

[jfengel]

Lots of creators like to create for fun. The type of work is different but it's not necessarily any less productive overall.

[kolinko]

Basic guaranteed income model aside, centuries ago artists lived off mecenates - affluent people who chose to support works of specific people.

We see a renewed interest of that with Patreon and other services.

[nerdbert]

In the current system, the percentage of artists who become wealthier than average from their creations is vanishingly close to zero.

Almost all the money is skimmed by the huge range of industries that have arisen to capture the marginal proceeds created by copyright law.

Maybe you could argue that all artists are motivated by the folly of dreaming that they will be the next unicorn who actually gets rich, but I don't think most of them are that naïve. They find creating fulfilling. They would still do so with a UBI.

[forgotusername6]

Historically you had patrons that provided for artists and the like. They weren't necessary paid for particular works.

[Yizahi]

Which was universally shitty way to live to all creators in world on average. Sure, top1% maybe lived acceptably, but majority just starved without proper business models. (it's not based on numbers, just a guess based on how humans lived centuries ago)

[wahnfrieden]

sounds like hardened political rhetoric to say simply that it's not viable. even ahistorical if you look at recent eg wengrow and graeber research. where's your intellectual curiosity for possible alternatives to status quo? but sure, enjoy your current "viable society"