
Why I hate the Kindle - ColinWright
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/?p=1075
======
sivers
I am at the Borobudur temple right now :
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borobudur>

I brought nothing on my long walk but water and Kindle.

Stopped for a couple hours. Reading an amazing book, with the temple in the
background. Highlighting the most important bits as I come across them. The
stuff I don't want to forget. The Kindle saves all of these to a file called
"My Clippings.txt", which I'll later transfer over to my laptop, for
memorizing and sharing on my site. This feature alone saves me hours of re-
typing.

The next 55 books I want to read are all queued up on the Kindle. I could
change my plan and stay here for months, and I'd have everything I need. I can
sit in queues for hours, thrilled that my next 55 books are already in my
pocket.

Filled with appreciation for life and my Kindle. It's topped my cellphone as
my most important "don't go without it" device.

I was just actively appreciating all this an hour ago on my walk. Then came
back to see this article. So there's my counterpoint, for what it's worth.

~~~
mattmanser
I've just bought one myself and have experienced the same kind of joy that you
have with it, very much similar to getting my first iPhone.

I think your choice on iPad/Kindle will always fall down to e-ink. I get
mentally exhausted at looking at backlit screens for too long, picking up the
Kindle I get none of that nagging feeling of strain.

It's a wonderful device and I wish I'd got it sooner.

~~~
larsberg
There's also a size/flashiness issue. If I'm going on public transit or
waiting somewhere that the whole "look, I'm holding a shiny device that's easy
to pawn!" thing may be a bad idea, I bring my kindle. Or if it's likely to
rain or I just don't feel like dragging around the ipad and a cleaning cloth
(what's with those smart cover streaks, anyways?).

Otherwise, I take my ipad. The addition of news reading (the economist and
reuters apps are fantastic) is why I usually bring it instead if I can.

------
iuguy
A lot of the author's hatred for the Kindle seems to have an irrational and
subjective basis. The author is clearly non-technical (referring to his sons
as his IT support). Perhaps that's a factor in his experience.

> 1\. You can’t safely spill sunscreen or wine on an electronic device, or get
> sand in it, or leave it out in bright sunshine.

I have a Sony PRS-300 that I take on holiday. I also have an iPad but don't
like reading books on it due to the backlit screen and weight. I've taken the
Sony to the beach (and had sand on it, and left it in bright sunshine) and it
was fine.

> 2\. You can’t share books on a device. I can’t even get e-books I bought on
> one device onto another device I own

For DRM'd books this is the case but you can't share physical books in the way
he's referring to, you'd still have to pass the physical object to another
person. In this respect Kindles and their ilk aren't really that different
from 'paperware'. On the other hand it _is_ possible to share books between
devices if they're not DRM'd, and there are many sources of non-DRM books.

> 3\. They could do the same to the second hand book market

Then the second hand book market will need to adapt to survive. If there is
sufficient demand for second hand books then that market will thrive. If not,
then it won't.

> 4\. You can’t cut and paste quotes from an e-book.

Not true. On the kindle the My Clippings.txt file can contain your book
clippings. Most readers support some form of annotation or clipping, or at the
least copy and paste.

> 5\. How are you supposed to refer others to specific pages of the text – in
> a footnote for example, or in a review?

However did people do this when different editions of books came out? Pages
often change between editions.

> 6\. I particularly hate the Kindle. This is a personal thing

This is particularly clear, and I think the author's basis is highly
irrational, and hate is probably the correct term. I doubt that addressing his
concerns would alleviate his hatred of the Kindle, in fact I would believe
that he'd only try to come up with new things to hate.

I don't personally see the Kindle (or readers in general) bringing about the
end of print publishing, but I do think there's a space for the market, much
as there is with MP3s and other forms of media. Since buying my Sony I've read
much more than I normally do, although to be fair mainly on holiday rather
than on the train for example.

~~~
icebraining
_> For DRM'd books this is the case but you can't share physical books in the
way he's referring to, you'd still have to pass the physical object to another
person. In this respect Kindles and their ilk aren't really that different
from 'paperware'. _

They are, because with paper books you have individual physical objects for
each novel, not a single object with all of them.

------
latch
I too have started to hate my kindle, but not for any of the reasons the
author lists. Mine are:

\- Availability. Within the US (and only within the US/Canada) book
availability is great, but it isn't perfect..outside the US/Canada it sucks.
Amazon once had books 1,2 and 5 of a series I wanted, but not 3 and 4 (I know,
i know, this isn't amazon's fault)

\- Price. Kindle books are often more expensive than their physical
counterparts

\- Quality. Not only are you paying more, but you'll get OCR errors in every
book.

\- DRM.

The above 4 combined make it so I rather donate to Calibre (<http://calibre-
ebook.com/>) and find other ways to get ebooks onto my device.

Additionally:

\- KDK. The KDK isn't public yet, and it seems imposible to get into the beta.
On top of that, the KDK is lacking some basic APIs (like collection
management)

\- Indie support. It's my understanding that you can't publish a _free_ book
as an independent author to the kindle store.

My plan is that when it's time to upgrade (hoping for a new batch of options
for xmas), I'll buy whatever has the best
screen/battery/dimensions/weight/price. Because, really, once you don't care
about the Kindle store, there's no reason to not simply get the best device.
Amazon doesn't do any value-added with the Kindle....there's no reason to be
loyal or stick with it.

~~~
dfc
What is a "KDK?" SDK typo?

You can publish a free book as an idependent author.

I have been annoyed by the occasional higher price of a kindle versus deadtree
book. But often? That is a stretch.

~~~
latch
are you 100% sure publishers can set the price to $0? I've done some research
on this, and I was under the impression that only Amazon can set the price to
$0.

A quick google search seems to confirm that $0.99 is the cheapest price people
can set.

------
StavrosK
This article sounds like it was written by a luddite. The only half-good
argument is book sharing, and even that isn't that great.

You can't copy-paste from the kindle? Let me just get my paper book out and
copy-paste some text from that here. Oh, wait...

~~~
bahman2000
AFAIK you can select passages on the Kindle and send them to your Twitter or
Facebook.

------
mp3geek
I have yet to buy any ebooks from amazon, just downloaded most of mine through
"3rd parties", and the kindle is a wonderful device for that, thus I can share
my books with whoever I like.

~~~
Tichy
Wish it would also sync the non-Amazon books, though. Maybe I am not
proficient enough yet, but so far I had to copy ebooks into obscure
directories by hand (especially interesting on the Android Kindle reader).

~~~
DasIch
You can sync non-Amazon books by sending them to you@kindle.com. If you are
using something like Calibre it's very simple.

~~~
safeaim
Are you sure that this also syncs on your Android Kindle?

It never works on my mobile for some reason.

~~~
ja27
I have never gotten anything except Amazon purchases to sync to my Android
Kindle app. I can manually copy .mobi (and I think .azw) files to my Android
and the Kindle app will read them, but there's no Whispersync between devices
except for official Amazon purchases. It's the same with my iPod Touch but not
many people realize you can manually copy books to the Kindle app.

------
dfc
I was really disappointed with this article. For some reason between the title
and the domain name I was expecting insight. The author offers nothing new to
the debate and even provides some questionable complaints. How do you cut and
paste from a deadtree book to your blog?

I think it is weird that people miss being able to show off to the world how
smart and wonderful they are with what they are reading. This is not the first
time I have seen a deadtree advocate complain that they can not display what
they are reading.

~~~
tluyben2
I have known this only from US people though; in movies, books and real life,
I usually see 'intellectual' Americans sitting with thick, big classics in
their hands, more looking to see if people are seeing what they are reading
than what is actually in the book. A Doors cover band in the Netherland used
to have 'Jim' walking up on stage with a thick copy of Das Kapital open in his
hand, but upside down to indicate the fakeness of that showing off behavior.

I've had guys quoting from Nietzsche (in horrible horrible German once) and
according to every American movie and series ever made with high school kids
in it, all people in the US can quote Shakespeare by heart and actually like
it and find it romantic. Other countries (UK included) just don't have that
kind of show off thing. Going to Paris is not intellectual per se, and holding
a big book and learning some quotes from it is neither, so why does the US
keep promoting that stereotype in everything it puts out? See a colored person
on deathrow; watch carefully if he reads/quotes some crap poetry from some
long death famous author and you, as the viewer of this B movie, know she/he
isn't guilty! Ugh.

Sorry got a bit offtopic, just curious why this is :)

I understand the OP point about nothing being able to see and show what people
are reading, but personally I would like to keep it that way so I can just
read what I want without having to look like 'an intellectual'.

~~~
gnosis
The number of Americans who even know what Das Kapital is or who Nietzsche was
is exceedingly small.

The number of times Shakespeare is mentioned in American films (especially
featuring teens) is also minuscule.

If a significant number of Americans were even pretending to appear
intellectual, I would view it as a vast improvement over the anti-intellectual
attitude that's all too common here.

~~~
tluyben2
I would like to see a study of that; I think you watch too little bad
television :)

~~~
tluyben2
Looked up some stuff; 90210, Dawson's creek, CSI, numbers; all tons of
references to Shakespeare and weird french stuff most EU people never heard of
even. All US series have this though; nice example-to-prove-the-rule (if
that's an expression there too) ; one of the shows I would expect this doesn't
have it; Monk.

------
samdk
These are all very valid points. Several of them (the ones related to DRM,
mostly) kept me from buying a Kindle for a very long time.

However, I love my Kindle.

First and most importantly, it means that books can now compete with the
internet in convenience, and that's meant that I've read more in the last few
months than I have in the several years before that. Thinking "I want to read
<X>" and being able to start reading minutes rather than days later is
_awesome_.

Second, I find the Kindle to be much nicer to read than cheap trade
paperbacks. The text is higher-contrast and crisper, and only having to push a
button rather than turn a page means I can read more comfortably. That there's
less text on each screen was an issue at first for me (because, like the
author, I read very quickly), but I've since gotten used to it and don't even
notice anymore.

It has its downsides, and I really do hope they're resolved at some point in
the future, but my Kindle has become something I really wouldn't want to live
without, at this point.

------
zxw
You can get the Kindle DX if you want a larger screen. I have one and am very
happy with it.

<http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GYWHSQ/>

~~~
gnosis
$379 for the DX vs $139 for the regular Kindle.

That's nearly 3x the price.

------
rubberband
1\. I can spill most things on my Kindle, or leave it in sunlight; I have a
cover.

2\. Amazon allows Kindle book lending, but the majority of publishers do not
enable it on their books. But this isn't a problem with the Kindle
specifically.

3\. There's less of a second hand market for e-books, this is true. This is
like complaining about how you can't resell games purchased via Steam.

4\. You can save quotes via the highlighting feature. If I were allowed to
copy/paste directly from the kindle app, I'd have a script which allowed me to
dump the entire text of a book in a few hours.

5\. Amazon added real page numbers in the latest Kindle update.

6 & 7\. Now he's just venting.

~~~
icebraining
_> This is like complaining about how you can't resell games purchased via
Steam._

So? That is a valid complaint - in fact, it's one of the reasons why I only
buy cheap stuff on Steam.

------
devicenull
Regarding his #1 point, the Kindle fits _perfectly_ inside a gallon sized
ziplock bag. It doesn't cause any loss in functionality, and doesn't look that
awful.

It's the first thing I do when I bring my Kindle to the beach.

~~~
ja27
I've carried different smartphones in a quart freezer Ziploc for years.
They've survived camping trips, rainstorms, water parks, beach trips, etc.
Capacitive touchscreens work ok through the plastic. A great cheap cover.

------
ja27
On a week at the beach, I never saw another Kindle besides ours. I saw
multiple people with iPads out on the beach. I was quite surprised. I've seen
a few Kindles "in the wild" but mostly in the hands of homeschooling / soccer
moms that spend a lot of time waiting for kids at various activities.

I struggle with purchasing ebooks. I'm ok with reading them on the Kindle, but
the idea of spending $10 on an ebook that I can't resell, give away, or loan
to anyone except other Kindle users doesn't excite me. I love the idea of not
adding to my overflowing bookshelves though. So I mostly only read DRM-free
books from free sources.

I've found that I get more reading done on the Kindle than I do on other
devices. As long as it's the only device I have in my hands, there isn't much
else to do except read. If I have any tablet or phone or anything like it,
it's too easy to read a couple pages then flip over to email, Twitter, etc.
and never get back to the book.

------
tobylane
Some of the reasons he hates it is that it makes it harder for some
businesses, that they are obsolete. Nearly every obsoletion that affects
people is thought of as bad by someone. There are many more out there that are
held back just because the owners are afraid of having to fire a lot of
people.

------
robryan
"You can’t cut and paste quotes from an e-book." Pretty sure you can highlight
things and then they would appear on Amazons new kindle social network to copy
and paste? Although doing so one the kindle itself is fairly clunky.

~~~
Blarat
but on the other hand it's even "clunkier" to copy and paste from a paper
book.

------
flocial
I've given up on reading books with the Kindle before even buying it. I
actually bought it to read The Economist and The New York Times (via Calibre).
The ability to carry a catalog of back issues, read without squinting at
microscopic text and carry collections of literary classics for weeks on one
full charge without other digital distractions is priceless. Having a rugged
weather-resistant model would be awesome but it's definitely changed my life
for the better. You just can't beat plain paper for some things, that's true.
The Kindle is a whole different game though.

~~~
dfc
I don't understand if you like the kindle or not. You gave up on reading books
with the kindle before even buuying it?

~~~
flocial
I love my Kindle but not for current titles, just news and classics and some
PDFs.

------
reinhardt
I've toyed with the idea of getting a Kindle or other ebook. It's kinda
convenient I guess for avid readers but I doubt it addresses my main beef at
all, which is reading itself. "Think of a book and start reading it in 60
seconds" is not really a compelling proposition if it takes (me) 60 hours to
make it to the end ( _if_ I finish it at all). It seems more like misguided
optimization to me. Wake me up when there is a gadget that uploads the
information directly to my neurons in 60 seconds.

------
replicatorblog
re: the issues of sharing and reselling, both of these are going to become far
less of an issue. With "mediocre" authors like Amanda Hocking
([http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/01/self-published-
auth...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/01/self-published-author-amada-
hocking_n_829906.html)) able to make millions by self publishing at a $3
price, we will see more established authors follow this route and eventually
weaken he publishers to the point where they must relent on these issues.
These are temporary pains cause by an industry being torn up by a technical
innovation.

If you look at Amazon's "Domino Project"
(<http://www.thedominoproject.com/books>) you get a sense for what they
imagine the future to be. Authors creating books to an audience built via
social media rather than expensive retail promotion and being sold for $5ish
dollars

As for the other points, I agree with most of the commenters that these sound
more like personal issues rather than technical problems.

------
wccrawford
"I can’t even get e-books I bought on one device onto another device I own,
although no doubt one of my domestic IT support staff (sons) could do it for
me."

... Okay, so you aren't a techie, and that's why you hate it. You should lead
with this next time so that the rest of us can ignore the whole thing.

------
Tichy
Most of the criticism applies to the Kindle specifically, not to ebooks in
general. The inability to see what others are reading is a problem, though.

~~~
tatsuke95
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is that a problem? Why do I need to see
what other people are reading?

If anything, other's inability to see what I'm reading is a bonus...

~~~
dfc
I hate to say it but I think its weird that peopleo want others to know what
they are reading. Is it a self esteem issue?

~~~
Tichy
I want to know what others are reading, not others to know what I am reading.

~~~
dfc
Oh so you are upset that I can keep my reading activities private? That's even
weirder than wanting others to know what you are reading.

~~~
Tichy
You are aware that that comment in the blog article (not mine) was tongue in
cheek, right? I mean yes, I want to know what other people are reading, but it
is not the most important problem in the world.

Also, I think it is weird if you are not at least a little bit curious about
the people around you.

~~~
dfc
If I am curious about them I will ask them a question and engage them in a
real conversation.

If you substitute "what color of underwear" for "what book" it seems super
creepy...just saying.

~~~
Tichy
This is another one of those online conversations that there are all sorts of
people who are _very_ different from each other. I don't think we are even
speaking the same language.

~~~
dfc
All I was saying in my first point wass that its weird that people want to
show off what they are reading.

My later point is that it there is a fine line between healthy social
curiosity and straight up creepiness. If you would not be comfortable asking
the person your question its probably creepy.

