Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them
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@karl @thomasfuchs which one do you have if I may ask?
@mijndert @thomasfuchs 782e, it is quite an old model.
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@dnparadice @thomasfuchs I have been trying to 100 percent avoid Amazon, but with a lot of places to buy eBooks from, it's more walled gardens. Kobo requires their own hardware or an Adobe ID. The books I want to buy are rarely available at other sources. I have tried so much, but everything is so complicated and time consuming and in the end I'm not owning my books.
I am back to sailing the high seas and instead of paying publishers I'm donating to the authors directly. If they offer that.@Eatsbluecrayon Didn't know about the Kobo limitations (Adobe ID, indeed!). I'll have to look further afield.
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Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them
If they don’t, the penalty should be that the CEO has to eat the bricked devices
@thomasfuchs
> “The challenge is that these devices were built for a different era and are not equipped to run newer, more data-hungry services and features,” he told the BBC, adding that “ageing hardware” could also pose problems.It's a fucking book reader, why would it need any "newer, more data-hungry services and features"
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@thomasfuchs
A helpful reminder that digital goods don't "exist". Access is only at the benevolent grace of EvilCorp ass-hats, non perpetual untouchable for your children and friends.Give real books a try. They're easy on the eyes and never become e-waste.
@TrimTab @thomasfuchs that's easy to say if your eyesight is good. But frankly, the ability to make letters on my e-reader bigger has been a real lifesaver for me - there are many books, especially reference books, that in print for are just nor really readable for me without literal headaches.
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@thomasfuchs
A helpful reminder that digital goods don't "exist". Access is only at the benevolent grace of EvilCorp ass-hats, non perpetual untouchable for your children and friends.Give real books a try. They're easy on the eyes and never become e-waste.
@TrimTab @thomasfuchs also DRM-free ebooks definitely exist? I bought a ton of those over the years and I feel pretty good about it. Yes, ebooks from amazon are shit due to DRM, but in many other ecosystems (like for example almost all online bookstores in my home country) you can just buy a DRM-free file.
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@mijndert @thomasfuchs 782e, it is quite an old model.
@karl @thomasfuchs Interesting! I guess my Roomba i7's are working still, and I hope they will for a while. Otherwise I hope they will either open up the API for these devices (not holding my breathe) or we find a way to reverse engineer. Don't want to throw away perfectly usable hardware obviously.
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@dnparadice @thomasfuchs I have been trying to 100 percent avoid Amazon, but with a lot of places to buy eBooks from, it's more walled gardens. Kobo requires their own hardware or an Adobe ID. The books I want to buy are rarely available at other sources. I have tried so much, but everything is so complicated and time consuming and in the end I'm not owning my books.
I am back to sailing the high seas and instead of paying publishers I'm donating to the authors directly. If they offer that.@Eatsbluecrayon @dnparadice @thomasfuchs they do? I have a kobo account and can read on my phone with the app - I don’t have to have an ereader (but I do).
I’m unaware of the need for the Adobe ID? -
J jwcph@helvede.net shared this topic
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@thomasfuchs it doesn't seem like this will prevent people from emailing books (bought or downloaded elsewhere) to their kindles, no? it's a pretty simple operation and if anyone (like me) is still holding on to a 2008 kindle it's worth it to learn it
@budin @thomasfuchs Check out whether you can use Calibre to get ebooks onto the device.
Works fine for my Kobo.
(Although I refuse to use versions >8.9.0 because of the introduction of "AI" features)
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Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them
If they don’t, the penalty should be that the CEO has to eat the bricked devices
@thomasfuchs The best alternative is to buy a real book, it is almost the same price than a kindle book, does not require technical support or any DRM restricted implementation software. Just a simple book
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@dnparadice @thomasfuchs I have been trying to 100 percent avoid Amazon, but with a lot of places to buy eBooks from, it's more walled gardens. Kobo requires their own hardware or an Adobe ID. The books I want to buy are rarely available at other sources. I have tried so much, but everything is so complicated and time consuming and in the end I'm not owning my books.
I am back to sailing the high seas and instead of paying publishers I'm donating to the authors directly. If they offer that.@Eatsbluecrayon @thomasfuchs well if I'm going to live in a walled garden I would rather it not be owned by a billionaire. I do like your other approach 🦜
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Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them
If they don’t, the penalty should be that the CEO has to eat the bricked devices
@thomasfuchs Absolutely. I have the Kindle Keyboard (2010) that's still going strong, after a battery replacement ($20 or something?). There should be significant laws against this constant e-waste churn, on top of everything else.
I guess I could root it and look at KOReader, or stick it in airplane mode and copy files via cable. What's worrying is that you can't factory reset it after this deadline.
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@budin @thomasfuchs it's unclear how usable kindles that have been reset/deregistered for re-sale if you cannot register them any more. Can these be used with calibre/sideload if reset after this date?
Also, it means that people like me with multiple kindles cannot sync books and reading position across such devices
@foobarry @thomasfuchs i don't know
but i guess it's likely that at least some use can still be had out of them. ideally someone finds out how to install something else on them and keep using them, but i've never checked if that's possible -
@budin @thomasfuchs Check out whether you can use Calibre to get ebooks onto the device.
Works fine for my Kobo.
(Although I refuse to use versions >8.9.0 because of the introduction of "AI" features)
@slackline for mine it works. to be honest i never used the kindle store in my kindle, i only ever copied files directly to it by plugging it to the computer or used the kindle email function which is quite convenient. i'll have to see what happens!
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Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them
If they don’t, the penalty should be that the CEO has to eat the bricked devices
@thomasfuchs Another example of corporations forcing their customers to spend money for no good reason.
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@thomasfuchs
> “The challenge is that these devices were built for a different era and are not equipped to run newer, more data-hungry services and features,” he told the BBC, adding that “ageing hardware” could also pose problems.It's a fucking book reader, why would it need any "newer, more data-hungry services and features"
@IngaLovinde @thomasfuchs
unless the data hungry services are spyware and ad delivery. -
Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them
If they don’t, the penalty should be that the CEO has to eat the bricked devices
@thomasfuchs
The CEO should be forced to take each device as a suppository. -
@thomasfuchs
> “The challenge is that these devices were built for a different era and are not equipped to run newer, more data-hungry services and features,” he told the BBC, adding that “ageing hardware” could also pose problems.It's a fucking book reader, why would it need any "newer, more data-hungry services and features"
@thomasfuchs imagine a fridge you bought in 2007 stops accepting any new food you put in it. You can only eat what's already there, but you cannot put anything new inside anymore. Its door literally switches to one-way mode.
That's because the fridge manufacturer ended support for your fridge, because it was built for a different era and is not equipped to run newer, more data-hungry services and features; and ageing hardware could also pose problems.
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Companies should be required by law to completely open devices when they end support for them
If they don’t, the penalty should be that the CEO has to eat the bricked devices
@thomasfuchs this is what parents are *supposed* to be for; there's exclusivity protection for a reasonable period in exchange for enough information about the patented subject to reproduce and improve it after that period ends.
That it doesn't work that way in reality these days is a large part of why the parent system is so broken. -
@magnetichuman @thomasfuchs We'll let 'em use tomato sauce, we aren't monsters
@brad I would even let them blend it first.
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@thomasfuchs
> “The challenge is that these devices were built for a different era and are not equipped to run newer, more data-hungry services and features,” he told the BBC, adding that “ageing hardware” could also pose problems.It's a fucking book reader, why would it need any "newer, more data-hungry services and features"
@IngaLovinde @thomasfuchs Yes. I wanted to quote exactly that.
It's a bloody ebook reader. My ancient Kobo that I never activated nor connected to the net works. It helps that I avoid DRM media like the plague it is. Or read dead tree books. They are nicer anyway.
Still: ebooks are really light weight and do not take up a lot of space, nor do they come with computing heavy features. So the reasoning is just... BS
