Related https://lemmy.world/post/25825690

FWIW my point isn’t about shaming people, it’s to make buyers fully aware of the consequence of their actions, both political and ecological. My point is to show that actual alternatives exist and yes they are more rare and expensive (probably also because they are rare, which is by design for Amazon, they do have scale in mind from the founding of the company, they undercut in order to dominate all marketplaces!). I genuinely wish the options I listed were both cheaper and more available. Now… it’s a bit like buying clothes from Primark vs e.g. Patagonia. The pricing is radically different, and their are both selling clothes, but I’d argue they are NOT the same products, including the ecological impact. So… again, not trying to shame anyone, solely show that alternatives, with different trade off, do actually exist TODAY. Every time one person try to go with the cheap and popular, they are tipping the scale to, IMHO, worst solutions for everyone else, including the 2nd hand market.

TL;DR: get a 2nd hand reMarkable, PineNote, Bookeen, etc…

there’s a reason why the kindle is as cheap as it is,

Indeed, cf https://lemmy.world/comment/15163037 unfortunately too cheap usually comes at a non financial cost.

Sure, it’s the same problem with most of electronics, it’s the console business model, or ink printer, where the device itself is “too” cheap and companies make money on content. Unfortunately it comes with shackles. I’m all for breaking the shackles but unfortunately has to be aware of what they are getting into, not just the trouble but also potentially supporting the company promoting DRMs and more.

I work in XR and Meta/Facebook is the embodiment of that problem. The Quest is too cheap compared to alternatives like Lynx (standalone designing in France, unfortunately still running on Android but at least rootable) or even the “old” now Valve Index, which in addition to its price also requires a gaming desktop.

So… it’s a money making machine for corporations. Hopefully recycling is done in a way that provide 0 support for the corporations locking down its device, promoting its marketplace BUT also, sadly less realistic, doesn’t also prevent companies who try to sell genuine alternative that do NOT promote such business model from existing.

Libraries (and Libby, the app they use) are also making it difficult to do anything but read in a browser or use Kindle.

Sadly too true. To be fair though I don’t think ANY librarian want that.

Here in Belgium we have an online library ( lirtuel.be ) that isn’t actually too bad. I looked it up and they say they provided ePub/PDF so I registered right away. Then… I discovered what they meant wasn’t ePub/PDF but rather DRMed ePub/PDF (here is an example https://www.lirtuel.be/resources/67aaf2124e480409978b68fb with ePub logo on the top right). Anyway I contacted them explaining that my ebook reader (reMarkable) does not support DRM and thus I couldn’t read the content. They pointed me to their documentation https://confluence.demarque.com/confluence/cantook-station/fr/faq/verrou-numerique-et-identifiant-adobe/qu-est-ce-qu-un-verrou-numerique-drm which implies it’s all “normal” to use that. I insisted, they didn’t reply.

Long story short, I’m either not using their service anymore or using DeGourou https://github.com/Bingwithyou/DeGourou to make the content legally loaned actually usable. Sad state of affairs but I’m convinced none of the actual librarians, namely people who care for making knowledge discoverable and accessible like that. I’m sure they’ve been coerced by same big publishers.

reMarkable, PineNote, Bookeen, etc…

I’m not saying anybody deserve to be mistreated … but come on, at this point if you buy something from Amazon it’s Stockholm syndrome. Just do NOT. It’s that easy.

F*ck Bezos and other billionaires. Stop making them even richer from your pain. Stop your mind from being literally enslaved!