After Microsoft and Google, this is my love letter to Amazon.
I love reading ebooks. Still is. It has many advantages over reading papers. But the advantages are not the focus of this post. The focus is instead: I loved Kindle. Judging by how long I stayed with one brand of product and the frequency of using it, Kindle was my favorite gadget. Actually, it was my wife who first bought a Kindle (3rd generation) in late 2010. She introduced me to ebook reading. Back then, Amazon was not as big and international as it is today. Only in 2010, the online ebook store was expanded from the US to the UK; and then gradually to more countries. I used some other devices to read some self-made ebooks before Kindle, e.g., Palm PDAs. But nothing can beat the look and feel of ebook on E Ink display. As my eyes have accommodated to it for over a decade, I am crazy enough to say that text on E Ink are nicer to read than text on paper.
In total, my wife and I have bought four different Kindles. The one I used, as of a week before, was the original Paperwhite bought in 2015. It’s slow (especially compared to my wife’s Oasis), also survived a hard drop from 1 meter two years ago. Because of that, the screen was slightly damaged. And Yes, it still works after ten years. I read even more books even after the screen was damaged. I could still use it and the old age of the device doesn’t matter. In general, Kindle is very robust, that Nokia 3310 kind of sturdy feeling I really like. Also, it satisfied my Genügsamkeit. 1 It works (in a way), then why buy one more?
In general also, I actually liked the idea of buying ebooks from Amazon. And in fact, I almost exclusively read ebooks “bought” from Amazon. I probably have “bought” some four-figure US dollars-worth of ebooks from Amazon. You might notice that I quoted the word “bought”. And actually, that’s the real subject of this blog post. Also as the title of this post suggests, I see thing a bit differently now.
Starting from 2025, I no longer own the ebooks that I “bought” from Amazon. According to the official definition, I only bought the right to read those books on a compatible device. So, in a way I only subscribe to those ebooks, only I don’t need to pay a monthly fee like Spotify or Netflix. And the moment I left the Amazon ecosystem, I don’t have access anymore to those ebooks I paid. I know ultimately, every thing with DRM (digital right management) is like that. For example, I also “bought” a lot of songs from iTunes Music Store. I know that I probably can still access those songs, but I counldn’t care less to install Apple Music or whatsnot. I simply left the Apple ecosystem voluntarily. So, I also voluntarily forfeit those songs I “bought”.
According to Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification thesis (“if you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product. Even if you are paying for the product, you’re still the product.”),2 this is the reason why these platforms are so powerful. They keep hostage of what you should own: What you have paid for, your lifestyle, your “friends”, your business, your data, your everything. The exit cost is extremely high. And in most of the time, these platforms are monopolies. Last time I checked, 7 out of 10 ebooks sold are sold through Amazon. For those who bought ebooks, chances are you have some ebooks hold hostage by Amazon. If you are using Kindle, the only official bookstore is Amazon. Of course, you can buy DRM-free ebooks in DRM-free epub from, I don’t know, Thalia; and then e-mail it to your Kindle. But Kindle is only officially associated with one online bookstore and that’s Amazon. It is worse than more computer-like devices such as an iPad (or even a computer!), which you can buy from various bookstores.
I am not a purist or anti-Amazon or anything. I probably will still buy ebooks from Amazon. If I am anti- anything, I am anti-monopoly and anti-anti-interoperability. I am okay to make compromises. But I think restricting myself to just one store is not a good compromise. Therefore, I will not buy another Kindle again. 3
Unlike the Thatcherian free market with TINA (“There is no alternative”), 4 there are actually plenty of alternatives. Almost all e-readers have better interoperability than Kindle. Just think about that almost all e-readers support the European service onleihe, except Kindle. However, many e-readers (Pocketbook, Kobo) are still tied with one store. I need an e-reader that is not restricted to one store. And it would basically down to a few choices: Tolino, or those Andriod-based e ink readers. Tolino supports many bookstores, but not Amazon. I have chosen Android.
The most popular choice that you would find online is Onyx Boox. YouTube is flooded with reviews of these devices from this Chinese brand. (Those annoying YouTube Faces thumbnails!) The moment I know that some of these reviewers were sponsored, I think the value of the product is not aligned with me. I sort of developed a reverse sense of thinking about online reviews: A product being popular online is usually not a good sign in this late stage capitalism. Popular doesn’t mean good. Look, Labubu 5 is popular. It’s (still) all over social media. Do you want one?
I don’t need a popular product. I need a good enough product. Then I found Inkbook. On YouTube, you will not find any English language review of it. Mostly Polish. I think that’s because they probably don’t flood YouTube with sponsored reviews. I also quite like the way they present themselves. (Man, a company in EU, which is hard to find these days.) I actually have around 300 Euro to waste and I have made the mental preparation to be disappointed. So I impulse ordered an Inkbook Focus Color, because why not?
I have now used it for a few days. Yeah, it is very decent. Mind you, however, my comparison is a 10-year-old Kindle. Of course, the most valuable thing is that I can buy ebooks from many stores. I bought ebooks from Google Play Store. And on this device, the reading experience of Google Reading App is way better than the the Android Amazon app.
The bottom line is: It’s good enough.
I think I’ll write a few more blog posts on ebook reading. It’s a joyous topic and it’s my escape. I hide myself in a pile of (old) books to avoid the inauthenticity of modern life. At least I know the books I am reading should be written by humans. Not some fucking LLMs.
I really like this word. But it’s difficult to translate this word in English. All possible English translations are rather negative. But the word is, in my opinion, positive. A virtue. ↩
https://doctorow.medium.com/even-if-youre-paying-for-the-product-you-re-still-the-product-2a22bbde037f ↩
I also notice that some ebooks are not sold on Amazon; or there is a strong mark up in price. Again, this is the price we collectively have to pay for Amazon’s monopoly in this space. This artificial limit of choices also limits what I can read and eventually my Weltanschauung. ↩
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative#Thatcher ↩
Just to write something for the future me: It is an ugly doll toy designed by a Hong Kong (perhaps, Dutch?) designer but being fucking popular in China, and then Korea, and then the US, and then worldwide. It is popular on the social media for the sake of being popular, or for the abundance of counterfeit. ↩