If you are one of those reviewers who honestly reads and reviews books, then you can feel like your signal is lost in the noise of the shill reviewers. Also, for those who were initially interested in what their real-life friends were reading, the majority of those IRL friends will have dropped off the site over the years, either because of a natural attrition or because they have come to prefer snackable web content over books.

Agree completely the broken community is much more important than the aged look of the website.

As much as possible, I find myself interacting with Goodreads through calibre plugins; I've got a library with zero actual book files that contains an entry for every book in my library, and I mainly use that to browse my collection. Since syncing that list takes so long, my actual calibre libraries are also synced to Goodreads, as that's where I actually make my changes.

With Library thing's recent removal of library limits, I'm thinking more and more about abandoning Goodreads--except I don't know if there's a calibre plugin for PT, and I've spent so much time adding and updating book records for items in my goodreads library, which would have to be redone for LT.

Amazon should never have been allowed to buy Goodreads.

This is why big social media sites have such high valuations. Any small group could develop an alternative to Facebook. However, the chances of that usurping them is almost zero. The same goes for Goodreads.

reMarkable would perhaps fall in the same category (eInk readers which are miles ahead of Kindle) https://remarkable.com/

https://gizmodo.com/sonys-beautiful-e-ink-tablet-made-me-fee...

There are probably at least a few good places to buy replacement batteries; I got mine from batteryship dot com. I have zero association with them except that I bought this one battery, and will probably buy a phone battery from them in the future.

https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/sony-digital-paper-dpt-rp1

https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/next-generat...

[Edit]

Sony might be closing down the Digital Paper division

https://goodereader.com/blog/electronic-readers/sony-might-b...

[1] https://remarkable.com

In the tablet vs laptop for travel I'm going to go laptop every time. So laptop + Kindle.

And to another comment, yes the Kindle is small and light but it's something else I need to keep track of so I tend not to bring laptop + tablet + Kindle. (And I've never been able to make an iPad work for me as a laptop replacement.)

Really tablet is just crappy movie watcher or smaller webpage reader. Having all this was good since on that trip my SSD de-soldered itself from my motherboard on my Laptop, forcing me to use USB Sticks and turn it into a $3200 chrome book.

I basically equate the kindle to a charging or backup set of wireless earbuds in weight.

Amazon didn't want to expand on Kindle functionality because

1) They were scared people would stop reading books

2) They were scared of it becoming something they couldn't control

3) They have their heads up their asses and think they can make software and hardware better than anyone else when all they can make is stuff like Kindle and Kindle Fire Phone and other useless crap

you know how originally Steve Jobs didn't want an App Store on iPhone

That's what Amazon was like

They are control freaks

EXCEPT

they are useless at hardware and software as far as it comes to devices (Kindle Fire Phone is a good example of how bad, though Kindle is also devolving fast)

Also they can't make a good ecosystem because they screw over everyone they work with

You see it in AWS where they copied and cloned successful AWS companies

You see it in Alexa where they steal ideas from companies in the Alexa Fund etc

It was the same story in Kindle eInk App Store

*

We built apps for eInk and all the other developers who worked on its shared the same sentiment we did. None of the developers could believe how bad Amazon were at working with devs

It was the most godawful experience you could ever imagine working with anyone on anything

A) They were so bad at letting apps go out to customers they had to close down the app store

B) For every app that did well they started contacting other developers to clone the App

That's why you saw 2 of everything. One high quality version, and then a cheap clone because Amazon's mindset was to have 2 or 3 of everything that started selling well

So all the early developers who spent money and time on it, instead of getting rewarded, got screwed

C) I had an Amazon guy literally tell me on the phone - You've already made $200,000 this year. Why do you want to make more? Our development costs were not even covered with $200,000

D) We had one hit game in one area. Let's say (just as an example) card games. We had a separate card game pending approval, Game X. They kept delaying it

Meanwhile an Android developer contacted us saying - You guys have this card game. How is it doing? Because Amazon is contacting us saying card games are hot and asking us to make Game X

So, we put in the effort to do R&D and discovered card games were hot

And they stopped our READY FOR LAUNCH app in the same area (card games) and started contacting other developers to make that same app. It's the kind of stuff you can't even imagine a business partner ever doing to you

*

E) They kept one set of developers (ones who they thought 'had already made enough money') completely out of launch of the Kindle Paperwhite

So some of the people who invested in their Kindle eInk App Store, they Screwed over by purposefully keeping out many of them from the launch of the new device

What is crazy is they invited other developers to clone the same apps

Many of those were low quality devs from 3rd world countries who were asked to make clone apps. They found some unknown company from India (no disrespect, just implying that it was not some known game studio) to clone our card game app and launch for Kindle paperwhite (while our game was kept out)

So our apps were kept out of launch and meanwhile low quality knockoffs of our apps were sent to customers

We literally had customers emailing and writing reviews complaining 'why is it not available for Kindle Paperwhite'

*

you might be talking about the Sony eReader

It was the first mainstream eInk based reader. Amazon takes all the credit but Sony did it first

All Amazon did was get lots of authors to offer free books and use that to get market share. Now everyone thinks Amazon invented eReaders and eBooks

Well, guess in a sense they did as history is written by the winners

Amazon is very good where it can get subsidies from the government (no sales tax, USPS special rates) or where it can make a platform and invite people in and later screw them over and replace them with someone else

AWS is pretty impressive

Sooner or later they are going to run out of affiliates/developers/companies/suppliers to screw over

For context Sony's reader required a windows app. Kindle had whispernet.

I wasn't a huge fan of either company at the time but ended up working at both in the following years.

I read fiction on a Kindle oasis. Its fantastic. I can't think of a single improvement.

Its impossible for me to work with technical materials on the Kindle. Specs, tutorials, tech blogs, tech books. All are unusable because of resizing figures.

I have one and I can. The case is too slippery. It's hard to operate one-handed while lying on the couch because it slips out of your hand. My old Kindle 3 is very easy to operate one-handed at any angle, no slipping.

I crank out the desktop for technical content almost universally. iPad doesn’t cut it either.

But at the same time I have actual physical books for very technical stuff. They are still easier to use.

They probably should be two different devices. Personally I'm waiting for the new Remarkable.