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Comment by hi_hi | Hacker News Reader

Wait, you have to pay to not have ads on a Kindle?

When did that start being a thing? I've been using a kindle for about 14 years, my current one is a few years old. I've been thinking about upgrading, but it works perfectly fine, and I've never had it display ads, and haven't had to pay anything for that "privilege".

It sounds like this will be my last Kindle device if I now have to pay extra for no ads, on a device I've already paid for, to read books I also pay for.

When will the madness stop!?

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I asked Amazon via chat to remove the adds because I was SCANDALIZED, just utterly SCANDALIZED to see romance novels on ads on the lock screen. They removed the ads for free. ;)

I bought the slightly cheaper version with ads years ago and asked support to remove them because they „weren‘t relevant to me given where I am living“. I found out about this option on reddit or in the product reviews on some local retailer‘s site, so I assume it is/was a bit of an open secret.

Congrats, you made a big fuss to save $20

megacorp set an arbitrary price for this, and you think the consumer is at fault?

I’m a monster for pulling one over on Benevolent Mother Corporation.

Thank you! It took about 7 minutes, and I’ll spend 7 minutes to save $20 every day.

At least ten years ago https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/technology/personaltech/r...

Can't read that but that is surely if you bought the subsidized ad-version of the kindle.

There's no difference between a "subsidized ad-version" and what al_borland said: that they "paid to not have ads on the Kindle"

You can get a Kindle for $110 with ads, or for $130 without ads.

I got my Kindle before any ads were in play (its like a second generation?), and several years afterwards it started displaying ads. Thankfully a chat with amazon solved it because I wasnt in US, so the ads were not applicable to me, but I definetly did not have option to buy non-ad version when I bought it.

I read it as if it was a subscription, my bad.

I'm an avid kindle user, I've never seen ads on my device. I'm in the UK

I'm in the UK and you absolutely get ads on kindles unless you have a very old device or bought the ad free model(TBF all kindles sold outside of Amazon at Currys, JL etc are always ad free).

Last I checked, about three years ago, any place selling kindles online (UK/Ireland) had small-print next to them stating that an internet connection and additional fee was required to remove ads.

I've been using the same Kindle Paperwhite for about 13 years and there always have been ads in it because I didn't pay for the 30$ extra initially. It never bothered me as they stop when you put the device in airplane mode, which is what I always do ;-)

It's a one-time thing, it's like $20. They've been doing it for at least six or seven years. You probably selected it when you ordered your current model.

When I bought my Paperwhite around 2013, I noticed that ads were an option on the kindles sold in the US but not in Canada. In Canada there was only the no-ads version.

Its been that way for years, the ad is on the lockscreen, and its an ad for other books. The version with no advertisement is 20$ more, I don't see the problem if someone wants to get a discount for looking at ads.

As far as problems go, I understand it's been a constant and this specific implementation is pretty low on the list, but generally, greed leading to ads intruding every aspect of our lives and people thinking up with new spots to place ads is a problem.

Creating a different experience around reading books for those who have and those who have not is also a problem, given how important literacy and the printing press are to the development of our society.

I'd love to see most advertising simply banned, but in the case of books there's precedent from back when people used to actually read enough to be worth advertising to: mid-century pulp novels often had a couple pages of glossy ads right in the middle, usually including one or more cigarette ads.

The first or last pages of books are still frequently used to sell other books from the same author or from the same publisher. Not that long ago they'd come with cut-out cards to mail in for your order for more of the publisher's books from the partial catalog printed in your book (nobody orders by mail any more, is the only reason the stopped that, I assume). Some of my books when I was a kid would have the first chapter of another book from the same anthology series at the end, to sell it (Goosebumps did this, for example).

Isn’t it strictly worse if they only offer the $130 no ads version? Why is choice a bad idea in this context? All it means is more people can afford it.

Yeah I don't find it that bad either. The ads are non-intrusive (only when not using the device) and the standard wallpapers are super boring anyway.

As much as I hate advertising, this is as good as it gets

Always been a thing, I think. When you bought it you could pay like $20 extra to not have them - you probably paid and never thought about it since, I imagine.

Actually there is a hack. After buying a kindle, you just write to kindle support and say that you are getting ads and you are not aware why are you getting them. They usually would remove them for you. Worked for me though when I bought kindle.

That's not a hack. Customer support just doesn't want to argue with people who are likely to get belligerent. You can get a lot of stuff for free just by throwing a tantrum, but is that really who you want to be?

> Hacking might be characterized as ‘an appropriate application of ingenuity’.

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html

It's not far off a hack. And not OP but personally I've got very few problems with getting one over on massive corporations like Amazon.

It's about as ingenious as littering to save yourself a 20 second walk to a trash can.

I disagree. It's exploiting a weakness in customer service provision in order to work around built-in UX degradation. Not many people would think of it.

Our society can only exist because people don't push the boundaries of what is technical legal but still harmful to others. There are also many laws you can break without any risk of getting caught. It has to be that way because we can only invest a limited amount of our resources into enforcement of our laws. It's one big prisoner's dilemma where individuals gain by defecting but if too many people defect on the social contract the whole system falls apart.

Likewise, businesses lose money on people who habitually return things. People who behave reasonably subsidize the "ingenious" minority. Generous warranty and return policies can only exist when most people behave reasonably.

> push the boundaries of what is technical legal but still harmful to others

This is actually a good description the behaviour of megacorps like Amazon. They are constantly looking for new ways to increase and consolidate market share, pushing or breaking the boundaries of anti-trust regulations, at the expense of the consumer.

I wouldn't advocate this sort of behaviour towards individuals or small businesses, only megacorps. Highly dubious that this would actually cause harm to the average person. If anything it would hasten the enshittification process, open the field up to competition, and be a net positive for society.

I am likely coming at this from an entirely different mindset to you. In my mind, the current economic structure implies that sufficiently large corporations are pitched in a battle against ordinary people.

It's not a weakness, it's Amazon's strategy to be generous in customer support to ensure loyal customers.

not so - they will fight you on the ad removal most of the time

YMMV, I paid for a no ad version of the Kindle and when I moved countries and changed the kindle store I stated receiving ads. After a 5 minute online chat they removed the ads again, but not before confirming my original purchase of the ad free kindle PW 10 in 2018.

Also works to say that you live in a country where Kindles aren't officially sold so you can't make use of the ads anyway even if you wanted to. Don't know if they actually check if you are in one of those countries, but I am so it worked for me.

This was, arguably, a huge driver for Kindle sales in such countries (mine included), as that $20 or whatever saved made much more of a difference for people there.

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