

Why I won’t touch the Kindle 2 with a ten foot pole. - raganwald
http://weblog.masukomi.org/2009/02/12/why-i-wont-touch-the-kindle-2-with-a-ten-foot-pole

======
JoelSutherland
Another factor to consider in the price of a physical book is space. The
median home price is roughly $200,000 and the median home size is just above
2000 square feet. This gives a cost of ~ $100 per sq. ft.

I just measured some books I had and 10 books per foot by 4 shelves high
yields a minimum cost of $2.50 per book to store. This does not factor in
moving costs of the lifetime of the book nor energy costs to heat/cool the
books.

It is surprisingly expensive to keep 'stuff'.

~~~
biohacker42
I preemptively apologize for this attempt to hijack the discussion, but does
$200,000 seem high for a median?

I'm a reasonably well compensated developer in the Boston area and it still
seems high.

~~~
masukomi
Are you kidding?! $200k in Boston would be a freaking steal. People would
almost literally kill for that. I'm in cambridge and all the 2 bedroom condos
on the blocks around me are $450k and up. And that's a CONDO with shared
walls.

~~~
biohacker42
Yes, that's Cambridge, 200K is not high there. But what about nationally?

I'm in the exurbs of Boston, and 200K as median just feels bubbly.

------
gabrielroth
> I wouldn’t even use one if you offered it to me for free.

So if I offered you a Kindle for free, you wouldn't even use it to read non-
DRM-protected books in open formats?

You used to hear the same argument about the iPod -- that because the iTunes
Store sold DRM-protected music, the device was somehow intrinsically flawed,
even though it's also perfectly happy playing non-DRM-protected music. It's a
weird argument. If you don't want to pay for DRM-protected content, don't pay
for it. The device itself might still be useful, especially if you're offered
one for free.

~~~
masukomi
exactly what non-DRM protected books in open format are you suggesting? The
ones in the public domain? I honestly wouldn't. I can think of maybe one I've
wanted to read in the past 10 years. As for your iPod argument, it's flawed
too because none of the books i have legally purchased can be put on a kindle.
Well, maybe 2 could, but they're PDF and formatted for a different paper size
than the kindle and would thus look like crap on it. So, what non-drm
protected content exactly are you suggesting that I would have to put on this
hypothetically free Kindle that would make it worth bothering with?

~~~
unalone
Good PDF books store their stuff as _text_. That's a part of the PDF format.
If I download a book as a PDF, when I move it onto the Kindle using their
_free conversion that costs me nothing and takes less than a minute_ , it
appears as beautiful formatted text, like magic. Almost like the PDF format is
designed to be flexible enough to adjust to other mediums.

First off, never underestimate the public domain. The funniest and greatest
books ever written are _all_ public domain. Hell, it's worth it to get the
complete Shakespeare in accessible format alone. Meanwhile, _most_ .lit sales
come with _no_ DRM whatsoever. Opening my Kindle right now, the following
files are on the front page: A Confederacy of Dunces, one of the funniest
books ever written; My Man Jeeves, ditto; Infinite Jest, one of the great
novels of the 90s; The Woman Who Rides Like A Man, a young adult novel from an
author I'm nostalgic for; Ulysses, the greatest novel of all time; 2BRO2B, by
Vonnegut; the complete Shakespeare; Neuromancer, The Bible, and It's Not News,
It's Fark.

Over half of those books were completely free.

Only one of those books has DRM, and - as I stated elsewhere - that DRM is
already crackable. I could email you that book this afternoon and you could
read it on your Kindle, if you really felt like reading the Fark book. The
other ones are entirely open. I have something that's the size of a paperback
book that has more literature on it than the rest of my sizable portable
library.

I've defended the Kindle again and again from uninformed commenters here -
with all respect to you, you're falling into this category and worse, because
you're so over-the-top about it in your blog. I will quickly summarize why the
Kindle is more valuable to me than my iPod is. If I want to go to New York
City for a day, it's a 4-hour transit round trip. I read extremely quickly. I
_could_ carry three books with me, or I could carry my Kindle and have, as was
stated, a full library. Furthermore, I can browse the Internet. Check my
email. Download books on-the-go. Download _samples_ of books. If I download a
sample of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, that includes two books' worth of
samples, for free, in 30 seconds, wherever I am, with easily-unlocked DRM.

The free books alone are worth it. I'm going to be elitist here and say that
if you don't think getting, completely free, access to the works of Joyce and
Yeats and Elliot and Orwell and Melville and Homer and the complete Greek and
Egyptian and Norse mythos, is worth the price of 40 paperback books, _you are
insane._ This device has saved me an incredible amount of money and it's given
me access to literature I wouldn't have had access to in any other form. I got
old books that I'd read decaying at my library onto my Kindle in much more
pristine condition. I got a collection of rare Asimov books that are out of
print.

You very obviously haven't used a Kindle, and you even more obviously haven't
put thought into just what makes the Kindle good - that or, worse, you're
ignoring those points just to be a shill to those people who will mindlessly
attack anything with DRM. I don't want to offend, because it's really not
worth a fight over, but this was a senseless, sensationalized article that
attacks something that's brought a lot of joy into my life, and I think that
your implications are both personally offensive and entirely irrelevant to
this web site, and I'm flagging your article.

~~~
masukomi
a few things. First, you do make good points about the free books but as I've
said before the vast majority of the free books out there, including public
domain, simply do not interest me. Yes, Shakespeare would be nice, but I've
already got the complete works sitting on my bookshelf. Project Gutenberg has
made tons of books available for years now and so far I've availed myself of
exactly one of them.

I have no interest in cracking someone else's drm to get a book on a Kindle,
and the vast majority of the books i read simply can't be purchased in PDF
format so even if PDFs do convert beautifully it is an irrelevant fact.

You say I "obviously haven't used a kindle" but I actually have. I haven't
_owned_ a kindle, but considering the title that should have been fairly
obvious. I have put a lot of thought into what makes a kindle good. I've been
jonesing for an e-book reader since I first read about the invention of e-ink
years ago. I really want to like it. But, even ignoring the DRM, the kindle 1
had a number of physical & software flaws that would have prevented me from
buying it. I'm not sure how well those have been addressed in the 2 but the
DRM and economic issues precludes me from particularly caring.

But, you are very mistaken if you think I am "a shill to those people who will
mindlessly attack anything with DRM". I have no problem with the iPod even
though it supports DRM because I can buy the music I want and put it on one
without purchasing DRMd copies of it. I would not, however, buy anything from
iTunes in their Pre DRM days, and to suggest that what attacks I do levy
against DRM are mindless only implies your ignorance of the problems with DRM.
Apple charged people a second time to un-DRM music they'd already bought.
Microsoft sold millions of DRM'd songs in a format they then abandoned and
will never be supported on a new device. However, there are uses of DRM that I
don't mind in the least. For example netflix streaming movies are DRMd. I am
not purchasing them. I am only being granted very temporary rights to watch
them. Because I don't own it, I feel I have no right to expect to be able to
back it up, or even to view it in the first place, so I will let them drm it
all they want. If it goes away or is never playable again I've lost nothing.

If I could purchase the books I want to read and put them on the kindle
without DRM (like i can songs on the iPod) I would have zero issues with it.
BUT the book marketplace is such that there is no reliable way for me to do
so. I don't know how many of the .lit books you mention are actually non-drm
but I suspect that a small percentage of the ones I would buy. What's worse is
that there's frequently no mention of if one has DRM on it or not. Take [this
book]([http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi-
bin/category.cgi?item=14295...](http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi-
bin/category.cgi?item=1429502355&source=&kw=)) for example. Is it DRMd? Who
can say? I can't, and thus I won't buy it.

As for it being a "sensationalized article". It was a post about why _I_
personally won't buy a kindle, and why _I_ think it's a bad idea on a personal
blog. If I had of wanted to be sensationalist I could have done a much better
job and would have insinuated that Amazon was evil and that we should boycott
them and so on and so forth. Instead I gave reasons why I won't buy their
product that they will hopefully take to heart when considering the Kindle 3.
Also, I happily give them thousands of dollars a year without hesitation even
though they make a product I don't happen to like that utilizes a technology I
am opposed to.

As for flagging the article I think it's totally out of line for three reasons
1) you started reading it knowing full well what the opinion contained within
it would be because it was obvious from the title. If you were offended by
that opinion you have no-one to blame but yourself. It's like suggesting
you're offended by Muslims and proceeding to read the Koran. Remember the old
joke? "Doctor. It hurts when I do this." to which the doctor replies "Well
don't do that." It's actually good advice.

2) I'm not the one that posted the article here, so while you may have been
offended by my words your actions in flagging the article will have no effect
on your perceived offender. Also, I never suggested that my opinion on the
kindle was relevant to this site, although the impact that DRM has on
purchasing decisions like mine most certainly is, and this article provides a
good example of that impact.

3) the fact that you found it "personally offensive" is again entirely your
own fault. There was no personal attack against you or against _any_
individual in that article. Nor, were there any implications that any person
was bad for purchasing it. I even updated the article early in the day to
reiterate a good point one of the commenters left about it being a good
economic idea for computer books that would obsolete themselves long before
the DRM became an issue. If you are offended by the fact that someone has
negative opinions about a device you happen to like you are in for a lifetime
of pain, because it's relatively safe to say there's at least one person in
the world who will take issue with some aspect of essentially every object you
own.

~~~
unalone
Fair enough - I reacted pretty harshly.

I try to read everything on HN, especially Kindle criticism, because the
popular opinion is negative on this site and I like to play devil's advocate.

As for flagging: it's really not my trying to get back at you. As you say: you
didn't submit this and you're allowed to write anything you want. I still
don't think it's HN-worthy, though, hence the flagging. It's not "Let's piss
masukomi off," it's "hey, maybe other people were similar-minded and flagged
this, in which case the story gets killed in exchange for a more relevant
one."

As for 3): I take everything personally kind of as matter of routine. I'm
very, erm, passionate about stuff like this. Again, I hope you're not offended
by my taking offense, because it's nothing personal towards you.

------
mattmaroon
This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by Dan
Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line. But I
understand the sentiment.

Nonetheless my understanding is you can fairly easily get any pdf onto the
Kindle, meaning if you get a non-DRMed version of the books you're fine. Is
that not correct? I own a number of digital music player's that support one
DRM scheme or another, and use them frequently, yet have never actually
purchased a DRM'ed file.

~~~
raganwald
> This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by
> Dan Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line.
> But I understand the sentiment.

Hmmm... I have never read anything by Dan Brown but I do re-read Ian Fleming,
Alistair Maclean and James Clavell.

~~~
ewiethoff
Dan Brown is the author I love to hate. His _Digital Fortress_ and _Deception
Point_ are hilariously bad. But don't bother spending any money on them; just
borrow them from the library.

~~~
mattmaroon
You know, at least I got through DaVinci code (though maybe only because it
was an audiobook and I had a very long drive). Try reading anything by Robert
Ludlum. I liked the Bourne movies, but I couldn't get 50 pages into that. It
was like reading third grade fiction projects. I can't believe writing that
bad could be published.

~~~
ewiethoff
Thanks for the warning about Ludlum. The sad fact is, Dan Brown's junk is
_better_ than a lot of other stuff I borrow from the "New" rack at the
library. At least Brown I can laugh at. Bad is bad, but laughably bad is
better.

------
copenja
Do you love reading or do you love owning books? If you love reading, the
kindle is great. If you to to own books, the kindle is horrible. If you love
both, well you have a real tough decision to make.

------
JulianMorrison
The only advantage the Kindle has is wireless access to the Amazon store.
There are other cheaper readers.

~~~
jskopek
Online integration with the amazon store isn't just another feature point
though, it's the company's primary direction with the product.

The content acquisition problem is just as important, or even more so, then
the hardware problems for any electronic media device. Someone using a
competing e-reader has to navigate a number of competing e-book stores,
download and keep track of their copies on their own storage media, and then
sync books over to their device via USB or storage device; that's a lot of
work when you just want to read a book.

I remember reading about someone who described how he'd walk into airport book
stores, lazily browse through their books, and then remotely download his
favorites onto his kindle; that's powerful.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Nah. They just slope over to
[http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_c...](http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_collection_2008)
and stuff themselves like a basking shark feeding on krill.

~~~
unalone
That's still slower than, if my grandfather mentions a book he thinks I'll
like, my going online, finding the book in 20 seconds, downloading a sample
chapter within a minute, and potentially buying the book to read if I like
that chapter. Furthermore, speaking as somebody who loves stuffing himself on
torrents: it's _very_ hard to find specific books on ThePirateBay, depending
on your tastes. You can't download, say, Finnegans Wake, which I just searched
for. All they have is the audiobook.

------
baddox
Why I won't touch the Kindle 2 with a ten foot pole: Because I don't have a
ten foot pole OR a Kindle 2, and even in I did, doing so would be utterly
pointless.

------
nazgulnarsil
I want a netbook with e-ink. (of course we'll need higher res, color, faster
response time e-ink, plus a built in reading light since they aren't backlit)
But this to me would be the ultimate portable computing device. add a headset
with VoiP service and set up some way of getting calls without constantly
draining the computers battery and you have a killer device.

~~~
blackguardx
The color you would get on an E-ink display would be pretty crappy. Because of
the limitations of technology, you wouldn't be able to get any better color
images than what a newspaper has. E-ink displays are also pretty slow to
refresh. They would have do something that doesn't use rasterization.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
doesn't look too bad. especially considering that this is new display tech.
<http://www.e-ink.com/press/images/image_release_86b.html>

------
fleaflicker
maybe for him but i know people that exclusively read hardcover bestsellers
when they travel. these are a huge pain to carry around. plus you hardly ever
to re-read them so it doesn't matter if the kindle breaks or goes out of
business.

~~~
masukomi
I avoid the hardcovers except for those of very few authors because, they're
physically awkward and heavier, however, I have reread every hardcover novel
I've purchased at least once. In fact I've reread almost every novel I own at
least once and within the next 20 years I suspect I will have reread my
current shelves at least 3 times on average. For me it's equivalent to
rewatching a movie, which people do all the time.

If you never reread books the kindle makes much more sense, but I do, and I
lend them out a lot too.

------
vaksel
why can't someone do the same to Kindle that they did to iPhone? Codebreak it,
so it can play any non-Amazon stuff.

Or better yet, just have it read HTML/pdf/.lit stuff, so that you can get the
eBooks for free and read them on there?

~~~
unalone
The AZW format _has_ been broken for a long time. That fact is conveniently
ignored by the people who like getting mad at things.

~~~
kqr2
Can you please cite the source for this? I have not read that the AZW format
has been broken. People, however, have figured out how to read mobipocket
protected formats on the kindle. That's a big difference.

A hacked AZW format would allow me to convert it to non-DRM format and even
share it with other kindles.

~~~
unalone
If you open an AZW it's essentially modified HTML. I don't know if a converter
is public or not - I frankly don't mind DRM very much - but getting
information out of AZW and into other formats isn't particularly difficult if
you really care to.

------
mapleoin
the obligatory 1997 RMS essay: <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.html>

~~~
asciilifeform
Many of the abuses in Stallman's tale have been brought to life by textbook
publishers.

I have taken a number of classes which used books having an online time-
limited, non-transferrable homework supplement.

Anyone who is counting on "the invisible hand of the market" to kill DRM will
be in for a rude surprise when they find themselves among one of the captive
audiences where it flourishes.

------
edw519
[http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX-
Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/...](http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX-
Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546735&sr=8-1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop-
Processor/...](http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop-
Processor/dp/B001BBS76Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546768&sr=1-11)

------
ahoyhere
I could write a long list of stupid design decisions they made with the Kindle
(it leaves nasty marks in my hand when I hold it in my preferred way), but...
the utility of it is amazing.

And I live in Europe so I can't even download stuff over the wireless. I have
to buy it on Amazon.com and then copy via USB. (Which is painless, even tho.)

I use it to get American / English books near instantly, at 1/5th the cost of
having them shipped from Amazon DE.

I use it to travel -- which I do a lot. I can read upwards of a book a day,
since I read about 80-100 pages an hour, even non-fiction.

Do I still buy paper books? Yes, I love them.

Does the Kindle free me to buy books I wouldn't otherwise, because of the
weight, size, expense and time involved? Absolutely.

I bought the Kindle 1 in November and I already preordered the Kindle 2.
There's no turning back for me.

As for the DRM, I don't really care. Say I can pay $8 for a novel or $12 to
see a movie in a theater.

The novel is cheaper, even if I couldn't read it over and over and over again
-- which I can. After seeing the movie in the theater, I can't watch it again
without paying again.

I look at the Kindle as a kind of movie theater convenience for books, with
the built-in ability to read anything I want again, as long as I want. Works
for me.

------
sspencer
My thoughts exactly.

