Google is giving Amazon a leg up in digital book sales
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Not accurate, at least for Kobo. They accepted Google's billing system, so buying from the Kobo app on Android hooks into your Google Wallet billing method and works without an issue.
It does mean you can't use Kobo gift cards towards purchases made on your phone, but you can always pop onto the website to do that.
I'm actually really glad that Kobo just did that, even if Google is taking a ridiculous cut. Anecdotally I'm buying way more impulse books on Kobo (i.e. a book on sale for $2.99 or less) since they got the app working with Google Wallet.
It's very little effort for doing your part in fighting the oligopoly.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
If Google insisted on being an option in the app it would be relatively fine. Users who prefer Googles payment system could chose it, but Google doesn't want users to have that choice.
Even when I buy books from Kobo, I never stored my credit card with them. I always bought gift cards and loaded the balance onto my account. That would occasionally get cumbersome, since the only vendor for those cards in the US used to be Wal-Mart, until they discontinued their relationship. Now I think Kobo might sell them directly out of Amazon.com--but either way, for the odd $2 and $3 purchases that I do on impulse buys (because a book may be on sale), just having it go through Google Wallet is much easier.
Though I've never had the above happen. I've had a few times where my number was compromised but the bank found out and gave me a new card before whoever got the number was able to use it.
You can proactively decide when a card will expire and how much it can be billed ("Sure, NY Times, I'll take a subscription for the trial offer of $4 a month, so let's make sure this card only allows a charge of $4 every month and/or expires when that offer expires.")
Citation needed!
In 2014 I worked for a small, unimportant ecommerce retailer. We migrated at around that time to storing only a token, using our payment processor (Braintree at the time) - and no longer kept any card numbers in our database whatsoever. If someone had dumped our 'credit_cards' table after that migration, they'd have nothing but useless garbage (the token could only be used by our own merchant account). I think even Braintree didn't need to store the card number itself either, but I'm not so sure of their internals.
Storing a payment card number in your database is considered an incredibly bad practice, is not PCI compliant, and probably violates other important "compliance" things you have to regularly certify as well.
Google having my payment info is no worry at all to me. Google is on a very short list of companies whose defense against hacking and social engineering attacks I trust.
Google seeing every one of my purchases? Not a fan. I don't think that's the argument you're making here, though.
They get it directly from at least Mastercard.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/google-an...
However, if you teach people how they can obtain DRM-free material, store it, and consume it in that format, that and only that can make the difference.
Amazon is effectively a monopoly at this point. Many books are available exclusively through them. I doubt that the US court system would look into this segment of market any time soon. They still can't decide what to do with Google, and that took them how many years? I doubt we will be able to resolve this problem in our lifetime.
People are slowly beginning to learn that their perception of digital content licensing and ownership is wrong. The more it is called out that they are licensing rather than purchasing content, the more we're able to explain why that is a bad things, the sooner people exert pressure to change the business or enact laws to do so.
Courts will decide if it is a purchase or a renting. Companies can say whatever they want the law is the law.
Basically priming a generation against libraries.
And then the ebook readers have these invented gripes why paper books no longer work for them and they must engage with the walled garden system in order to read. Some of it is truly pedantic stuff like “book too heavy.”
You have left off the abusive terms under which the ebooks are leased to the libraries.
https://pressbooks.openeducationalberta.ca/ciicm/chapter/pub...
The above source fits with what ChatGPT told me (the chatgpt info is otherwise unverified):
https://chatgpt.com/share/682cffab-65b4-8002-8561-1b5842dc25...
Where are you getting inventing gripes from? Change font style and size is a major factor for many people along with weight. I started reading way more when I could use a ereader instead of print books.
I own a Kindle since, I don't know, 2015, and I can count the number of books I read on it on two hands and I read about 30-40 books a year. The only reason to rent an e-book are imports that otherwise are hard to get or cost an arm and a leg.
But I found that it's possible to request books like that through other libraries, since most libraries have agreements with other libraries to allow interlibrary loans
Typically, a public library is legally prevented from spending tax dollars to provide services outside the taxing area. This is a pretty reasonable limitation, but it does prevent the actual mechanics of operating interlibrary loans. It doesn’t really cost a lot of money - a van and a few part-time drivers can cover a pretty wide geographic area. But that money has to come from somewhere else. That’s where those federal grants came into play.
> Google and Amazon say the payment options aren’t new. Google said Amazon was among a few companies that had been able to offer non-Google payment options for their existing customers, under a test program.
"It's not a special deal. It's just that only a few companies can benefit from it."
Who are they kidding, seriously?
> Amazon doesn’t seem to be paying Google a fee
"Test program", what a bunch of corporate shitspeak.
It's simply that Amazon is one of the few companies that can get away with not paying Google anything. Amazon is the big dog in this context.
If Google were to cut off Amazon from search results, people would just do all their shopping (and searches) directly on Amazon and cut Google out of the process entirely, and Google would lose hundreds of millions in ad revenue for the ads it show sin Amazon-related google searches. Amazon could even promote competitors to Google on their website just for the hell of it (or more likely in exchange for $$$ or stock), and Google would start seeing material drops in usage (material meaning large enough for investors to care about).
Amazon and Google don't have a deal. Amazon is just doing whatever the fuck it wants and Google is going along, because Google already lost this battle in court. Notably, Amazon didn't start offering the option to buy books in the Android apps until after Google lost the court case.
Amazon is very likely to do this with its Apple apps later this year as well, now that Apple has also lost this battle and may be facing civil and criminal sanctions for its continued attempts to prevent companies from doing what Amazon did on Android.
So, an article entirely built on speculation.
Speculations refuted by Google: "Google said Amazon doesn’t have a special deal.".
What's more likely is that the share of users who buy books exclusively from the mobile Kindle app is extremely low, and that therefore it's worth selling at a loss or no profit for Amazon, to retain the customer experience.
It's also likely that Amazon doesn't have a special deal with Google, but has a special deal with book publishers, which means it's able to turn a profit even with the 30% app store cut.
The purchases happen completely within the Amazon App, billed to your Amazon payment method, without Google Pay. That is clear evidence that they have special treatment. Google is lying here.
https://apnews.com/article/washington-post-bezos-opinion-tru...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/10/25/washin...
I will grant you that it is partisan, but until very recently that wasn’t even remotely a problem. Its only a “problem” now because one party has decided that they’re right all the time and will brook no deviation from the course they’re trying to set. Had the board been willing to endorse Trump, 110% Bezos would have allowed it.
But let’s be honest: partisanship is only a problem when someone disagrees with your take. Then it’s all pearl-clutching and “won’t somebody think of the children!!”. So I find your comment disingenuous on its face.
"They're not confessing. They're bragging."
-- The Big Short