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Comment by travisp | Hacker News Reader

This was very exciting to me until I realized that you don't actually get to read books this way. It's limited to book samples. Still, it has some usefulness.

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I experienced the same letdown. I was super excited that I'd be able to start reading books at work (the Kindle PC App is "unapproved" software).

Still, I guess it is nice to be able to preview books right away instead of having to go through the cycle of Send Preview to Kindle, Read Preview on Kindle, Go to web browser, look up book, buy book, and send back to Kindle.

You don't need to "Go to web browser, look up book, buy book, and send back to Kindle". You can buy the book directly from the sample with two clicks (menu -> buy this book)

Unfortunately I've also accidentally ordered books (more than once) when trying to delete the sample.

As a testament to Amazon's great CS though, I've gotten refunded immediately when that has happened.

I do all my reading from the Kindle App on the iPad, which does not allow in-app purchasing of books. So that's where I grabbed my workflow from. I do understand it's easier if buying from an actual Kindle device.

I imagine it's tough to display DRM-protected content in a browser without being able to make copies using something like a Chrome extension, which would infuriate the publishers.

There's no obfuscation. It's just JavaScript working on an iframe. The actual page is:

http://kindleweb.s3.amazonaws.com/content/B003X28734/gz_samp...

Which is actually some fairly nice HTML.

Probably because it would be very easy to copy the entire book. Right click on the book, then "Open frame in new tab", and the entire book can be freely copied and redistributed.

But the books you buy from Amazon are already HTML files with a trivial layer of encryption that takes about 5 seconds to remove.

And every book they sell is already available on TPB.

So I am not sure what this would prevent, except paying customers getting something worth paying for.

Same here. The Mac OS X version of the Kindle software is atrocious and this was perhaps, if only for a second, a shred of hope.

Same here. That would have been the first officially supported way of reading kindle store books on linux, for example.

Unofficially, I use this - http://blog.brianlane.com/2010/09/18/kindle-on-linux-using-w...

Does anyone know why they won't release full books on the web? Seems like the demand would be strong.

It's right there in the FAQ.

"Why can't I view more pages from a specific book?

We help our customers discover and sample books to ensure that they'll be satisfied with their purchases. Our agreements with publishers and copyright holders currently limit how much of the book is available for preview. We continue to work with publishers to expand these limits."

I've never really understood the concept of "sampling" a book. I have always found that books (fiction, non-fiction reference) that I really enjoyed have always been referrals. I think that particularly with fiction, you have to give time to appreciate the characters, the writing style and the general feel. Anyone else find that "Sampling" for books just seems weird?

It may be hard to tell if a book will good after only reading a few pages, but it's often easy to spot bad ones right away.

While I do second your impression that many books I liked where referrals, I'd say that the image of a customer sampling a book in a public library or bookstore seems to be quite an iconic classic, and thus it makes sense to port it to a new media.

On the other hand, while it is hard to judge a book by it's cover, it's not so crazy to judge it from a few paragraphs: if it's a funny book, you can usually tell right away if it's your genre of irony, and if it's fantasy you can see easily if it's all smeerps and naked heroins dressed in leather and so on.

Some things do grow on you during reading, but if you can't stand a pompous verbose style (or a crude bare one) you can avoid starting reading something you won't ever even finish.

But, obviously, all of this is IMO.

They make too much money selling kindle, to release a full reader any time soon.

As long as I need to have some special reading device, I won't buy any ebook.

Amazon's deployment of "free" Kindle reader software to many platforms differs from your interpretation. In terms of razor economic models, the Kindle hardware may be a deluxe razor handle, but Amazon seems willing to sell blades to users of other hardware.

I suspect they make very little money selling Kindles. They probably sell for about break-even, as seen by the price drops.

Amazon want you to buy books, preferably online, and only from them.

You don't need a special reading device. If you download Kindle for Mac OS, you can read the book on that application. But if you want to read eBooks, you should get 'some special reading device' for the same reason that you should get a stand-alone TV or a toaster. Yes, you can fudge it with a more general use device, but the increase in usability and ergonomics more than makes up for the initial cash outlay.

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