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Is Kindle kidding you?
 

DoubleDip.'s picture
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 2:49am

K, so last week there was fundraiser and I won the raffel prize of Kindle Fire (new).
When I finally got around to setting it up, I looked on Amazon to find a few Kindle books to buy. Pissed is an understatment. I found Kindle Books (KB) that cost more than the physical book to buy. That makes no sense, since it cost next to nothing to distribute the book, no cost of printing, yet the price of new/bestsellers for KB was similar or just cheaper by a little to the physical book.
I was lucky to have won my Kindle thanks to a 20$ raffel ticket I bought, but it really must put people who paid the full price for the Kindle into a crazy rage to find out the prices of the KB.
But the best part is that if you buy the KB, you don't own the book, your just renting it, so your only buying the rights to the books, which means if Amazon or the publisher sees fit at anytime, can take away the rights to the book, and know this because i read the agreement when I was setting-up my Kindle.
While the KB or electronic book does help the environment, it sure as hell fucks over everybody that buys/uses one.

Tags:
jec's picture

What? 90% of the kindle books

 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 3:07am

What? 90% of the kindle books are 10-15 bucks.

West Coast rainmaker's picture

If you are looking at old

ER
(Neanderthal, 2,071
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 7:35am

If you are looking at old books, then the used editions are likely cheaper. You are paying for easy transportation and instant access.

You have to deal with physical books if you buy used. And, while I am not advocating piracy, eBooks are just files of data...

Old Grand-Dad's picture

Yeah it's pretty ridiculous.

IB
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 8:13am

Yeah it's pretty ridiculous. I prefer physical copies of books so I won't get kindle books unless they're significantly cheaper than the physical copy, which is basically never. My kindle fire was a gift, that's the only reason I have it. That being said, I have an Amazon Prime account which grants me free access to tons of kindle books. If it's free I'll take it. With Prime I also get free 2 day shipping so I have essentially no reason to ever pay for a kindle book.

Amazon makes a boatload of money whether you're paying a ridiculous amount of money for a kbook or you're paying for the prime subscription.

SECfinance's picture

Can you provide some links to

IB
(King Kong, 1,414
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 10:41am

Can you provide some links to examples? I've never bought an ebook that's more than a real book.

happypantsmcgee's picture

I've actually seen this too

O
(Almost Human, 9,621
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 11:54am

I've actually seen this too but on iBooks. I was going to buy a Michael Porter book awhile back and it was like 30 bucks.

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses - Henry Ford

Dimethyltryptamine's picture

just torrent them..

(Baboon, 110
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 1:45pm

just torrent them..

Il Cavaliere's picture

@Dimethyltryptamine: You are

IB
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 1:54pm

@Dimethyltryptamine: You are scum. One can make a case that illegally downloading music won't hurt humanity, but stealing books means that in the future authors won't write any good and well researched books and there will me much less knowledge. No Monkey Business, no books on how to break into Wall Street, no Damodaran on valuation. I hope they imprison you if possible, you are a disgusting, thieving and conniving human being.

cokeaddict's picture

the instant access thing is

IB
(Monkey, 45
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 2:55pm

the instant access thing is pretty valuable to me. i hate waiting for books to arrive, and books aren't that expensive to begin with. So it's still a good deal. old books smell funny.

CompBanker's picture

I've had a Kindle since

PE
(Almost Human, 8,504
 
Points)
 on 5/12/12 at 5:11pm

I've had a Kindle since Thanksgiving and I think it is great. I've very rarely encountered a book that costs more on a Kindle than it does for the hardcopy, but they are out there (numerous WSJ articles have been written on the fairness of this pricing strategy). Usually the difference is only a buck or two, which doesn't strike me as meaningful in the long run (how many books do you buy/read a year?) I consider myself a pretty "high volume" reader and I've only read ~20 books in the last six months.

As for the Kindle itself, I think it's awesome. As a poster mentioned above, being able to buy a book and then read it instantly is pretty valuable. Also, if you're traveling, having all your books in electronic format means you can take every book you own with you. This is big if you finish a book mid-trip and don't want to bring multiple books with you. Of course, a Kindle also reduces the clutter in your apt / dorm room. I've moved multiple times and lugging around a bookcase worth of books can be annoying, not to mention they take up physical space.

I don't mean to make this post a Kindle ad, but you should definitely give it a fair shot, the device is pretty solid.

CompBanker

milanftw's picture

Il

 
Points)
 on 5/27/12 at 5:32pm
Il Cavaliere:

@Dimethyltryptamine: You are scum. One can make a case that illegally downloading music won't hurt humanity, but stealing books means that in the future authors won't write any good and well researched books and there will me much less knowledge. No Monkey Business, no books on how to break into Wall Street, no Damodaran on valuation. I hope they imprison you if possible, you are a disgusting, thieving and conniving human being.

lol are you really that stupid??

Really??

do you actually think that everyone writes for money only?
and that they get inspired to write well because of money?
Monkey Business is a good book to you?

You are one stupid cunt... I hope that some of those books you pay for will help you land any job..

Value_added's picture

I dont have the fire, but I

O
 
Points)
 on 5/27/12 at 6:54pm

I dont have the fire, but I love my kindle e- reader. Can use it for whitepaper and research PDFs so I can give my eyes a break from the LCD screen.

As far as prices, most ebooks are usually cheaper than buying the physical new version of the book. They can't compete with amazons used book prices but I think the convenience of instantly getting a book and being able take hundreds of books with you anywhere is pretty valuable. That and Im to the point where I'd much rather read a book on my kindle than a physical book (never lose your place, easier to hold, easier to take with you).

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