Barring a point-by-point analysis, his interesting points include:
- Non-ethical corporate compliance with surveillance activities.
- Pay-for-placement allegations. (Especially interesting given recent lawsuit for ratings spam.)
- Warehouse worker treatment.
- Monopolistic pricing power, particularly against small publishers. (Also ironic, as Amazon has given self-publishers a great platform.)
Note that this is just a list of allegations: this isn't a particularly investigative piece. (Though several have been linked and/or published elsewhere.)
Less valid arguments/rhetoric include:
- Calling the Kindle a Swindle. (Cute, but I can't take your argument as a serious, objective view.)
- Broad "freedom" arguments about file formats (PDF, MP3) and rights associated with same not originating with Amazon.
- Auto-update as a "back-door".
- Hosted content vs. owned content and the pros and cons therein.
- Workers "walk all day under the orders of a computer". (Like Uber drivers drive all day under the orders of a computer?)
- General competitiveness against bookstores and differences in business models.
So I'm saying that Stallman makes N interesting points (albeit without much in the way of reasoning), another N points I find to be logically unsound, and that combination of factors lead to an overall "article" that isn't very impactful.
Interesting that calling the Kindle a “Swindle” is vilified, yet an entire generation of techies called the TRS-80 the “Trash-80.”
My conjecture is that if you are inclined to agree with someone’s negative point of view, rhetorical tricks like insulting nicknames will be well-received and will help frame the idea emotionally. But if you already disagree with someone, you’ll be even more annoyed by arguments that aren’t really arguments at all.
My guess is that his nicknames won’t pay well to this audience, and also that they do better in some places than others. For example, blog post titles are usually so bad that people have very low expectations.
“The Great Kindle Swindle” would probably fly as a post title, while calling the device an Amazon Swindle repeatedly might not.
> an entire generation of techies called the TRS-80 the “Trash-80.”
There's no double standard in my view. Calling it that in a persuasive essay about why you should avoid the TRS-80 is similarly childish and imprudent.
> My conjecture is that if you are inclined to agree with someone’s negative point of view, rhetorical tricks like insulting nicknames will be well-received and will help frame the idea emotionally.
Almost certainly so. But this is clearly framed as a persuasive essay.
