Kindle and the Future of Reading | Hacker News Reader

Kindle and the Future of Reading

newyorker.com

13 pointsrob_rasmussen20 comments

I bought a Kindle for my technologically-inept mom, and she loves it. Things like the font, screen color, etc. don't bother her, because she focuses on the bigger picture: thousands of books on a portable device that's supported by the world's largest internet book retailer. That is, she says, the next logical step for books to take.

I think that for the Kindle to become something more than a high-end toy, Amazon is going to have to drop the price to about $99. Then they would sell millions.

The aesthetics bug me a bit, too. I wish the screen took up almost the entire front of the device.

I wish the screen took up almost the entire front of the device.

No you don't. You want a large surface to hold the device, to move it from hand to hand, and to not touch/smudge the screen.

No you don't.

Yes, I do. I need a 1/2" frame around the edge of the machine but beyond that, I just want screen real estate. Take a look at the Sony PRS-700BC. That would be the ideal machine if it worked with the Amazon book store (ignoring the 1984-ocalypse)

Well, it's certainly just a personal preference, but I tried both, and liked the Kindle more - I like having my thumb firmly on the bottom part of the device when reading, with Sony's reader I felt constantly afraid of touching the screen.

And add more textbooks. I wouldn't hesitate to buy one if they were cheaper and I could get all my textbooks on it for rather cheap (I'm not going to pay another $170 for a textbook just so I can have it on the kindle).

And when your school requires a textbook that is only available on kindle so you can't buy a used copy or borrow one from the library, or share a friend's - then how much do you think they can/will charge for textbooks ?

I'm betting on some very large 'incentive' payments to schools to try this, along with some seminars in Hawaii to explain to college presidents how wonderful this will be.

"Arizona State University to try out e-textbooks on Kindle"

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=726389

This is obviously a problem, which is why I said I'd like them rather cheap. I don't think will happen, at least any time soon, but one can dream.

I have no interest in touching it as long as it's still saddled with DRM. That's the real deal-breaker for me.

"Saddled with DRM", how exactly? It gives publishers a right to their content as defined by copyright law, and lets you put on un-DRM-ed PDF's and text files in any way you see fit.

Does the use of digital restriction management respect the first-sale doctrine?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

It doesn't seem like it, but from what I understand in the wikipedia article you linked, while the first-sale doctrine says copyright law doesn't apply to resale of copyright, it doesn't guarantee it your reselling as a right. But I don't know much about it at all, please correct me if I'm wrong.

"Saddled with DRM", how exactly?

Amazon reserves the right to delete files from your device if it decides they violate Amazon's terms of service. That in itself is enough DRM to keep me away.

The Kindle or any other reader should be free. They should earn the money by selling books.

I still cringe at the thought of paying money for a device that solely allows me to read. It's like building a device that allows me to breathe and sell it as the next big thing.

We already can read books without a "gadget" so forcing us to buy an expensive one in order to do the same thing we've always done for free sees bizarre at the core.

You can buy (and some people do buy) a device that solely allows you to breathe. For instance, a snorkel. Of course, it's more accurate to say that it's a device that allows you to breathe underwater; likewise, it's more accurate to say that a Kindle is a device that allows you to read without carrying around so many heavy books. Similarly, some people pay for cutlery and crockery to allow them to eat (more pleasantly), or telephones to allow them to talk (even when the person they're talking to isn't nearby), even though eating and talking aren't much less fundamental than breathing.

I still cringe at the thought of paying money for a device that solely allows me to read.

I don't see how that's any different than paying for a device that solely allows you to listen to music.

It's like building a device that allows me to breathe and sell it as the next big thing.

That's silly; you can read without a Kindle, of course. The Kindle just offers an arguably better content delivery system, and I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect people to pay for that.

Everybody was saying that the new Kindle was terribly important—that it was an alpenhorn blast of post-Gutenbergian revalorization.

Ugh, what terrible writing.

At least now you can remotely delete books! Or rather get them deleted.

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