Hacker News Reader

Comment by gabrielroth | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

View on HN

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?

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.

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...) 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.

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.

> 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.

Ick. I was with you until you took things personally and said this. Flagging articles are about removing abuses or spam articles, not removing things you disagree with. If nothing else, your lengthy and otherwise thought out response won't be read by others if this submission is removed from this site.

I flag articles that I don't think are up to HN standards. I seem to recall there was a discussion that said that was an acceptable use of flagging: in any case, that's how I've always used it, as a sort of "I don't think this should be here" button.

This article in particular, because it was sensational rather than debate-worthy. "This is why I wouldn't buy a Kindle" versus "I wouldn't touch the filthy, rotten awful thing even if you gave it to me for totally free." I thought it was worth a flag.

Wow, I think you just sold me a Kindle. I'm not even kidding. That was really amazing. Thank you.

Glad I could help explain! It really is a marvelous device - if you get one, I hope you like it as much as I like mine. :-)

I just ordered a Kindle. But now I need to learn where to find all those free books (I love classics, but where can I find all of Plato's dialogues? King James Bible? Also, I want to buy an ebook (Michener's The Source) which is not available for Kindle but can be purchased as an ebook. How will I get these on my Kindle. I need specific help and would be most grateful for any. I've been reading these discusions for several days and ordered the kindle on faith. Now I"m looking for books I really want and don't know where to find. THANKS!

Try sources like the Baen Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/). There are plenty of current titles available legally and for free there and elsewhere if Gutenberg doesn't suit your tastes.

Actually I never heard that argument against the iPod. I heard the DRM argument against iTunes often enough but I've never heard anyone complain about the iPod being a DRM-laden monster.

That's because it's not a DRM laden monster and the distribution of music is such that there are many alternative ways to get songs you've purchased onto one without involving DRM. Unfortunately the same can not be said for books even though essentially all of the electronic books will let you put non-drm'd material on them.

A few high school friends of mine got more obscure music players because they didn't want to be forced into using iTunes. One or two thought iTunes added DRM to tracks that wouldn't have DRM otherwise.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com