They were subsidizing them to establish an ebook marketplace. They’re no longer doing so.
I still have my Kindle Keyboard. It still works but the front lighting on new ereaders is a big upgrade. The software was pretty primitive back then too.
E-ink bought a lot of competitors and alternatives up and thus why it’s expensive.
Tldr: capitalist efficiency
There is a neat piece about the OS side; worth reading.
My very early gen, Nook glowlight is still going somehow. I even bought it used for 50 bucks about 10 years ago. The battery is still decent and backlights fine and I am able to keep it offline. Im not sure what I would do if it croaked.
I’ve got a decade old Sony ereader that’s still good as new. Battery lasts a couple weeks too, I love it.
I bought a nook simple touch a couple of weeks ago for $20, look into the Phoenix Project for those.
The kobo colour goes for less than $160 regularly. It is water proof, has front ligths, usb-c, and it can display color. I’m considering it for an upgrade from my, bought used 8 years ago, kindle. With Kobo, and ereaders track record in general, it will probably last twice that and still work. I consider that extremely cheap, specially in a market that usually expects people to dump a thousand dollars every two or three years for a phone. E readers have some of the best cost to utility ratios of electronics.
Yeah, I just paid $140 for a Clara BW, and I’m considering the Libra Color the next time it goes on sale (my kids like comic books).
To be clear you don’t have to get that technical to read non-Amazon books on your kindle… I’ve owned 2 different kindles over the course of about 15 years and literally never bought an ebook from Amazon. Just gotta know where to get them (libgen) and how to use them (calibre.)
A cheap ereader would be nice, but I’ve kinda had to go the opposite direction; my eyes weren’t great to begin with and have only gotten worse with age, so I need a larger screen. I do very little reading (in general, not of books specifically) on my phone because it’s too small and I have to zoom in and pan around all the time, etc.
He blames patents (Eink isn’t a patent troll) although Eink patents expired 7 years ago.
The problem is even without patents, the underlying tech of making the eink particles is hard.
To be honest I don’t really find them prohibitively expensive if you count the value you’ll get from them over the years. I have both a Kobo Libra 2 and an Android Boox Page, which I bought for different use cases. I see them both lasting me many years. My previous Kobo Aura One lasted me 7 years in itself before I sold it 2nd hand. My reading skyrocketed once I bought an e-reader.
Reminds me of the old mp3 player days before the iPod came in and dominated that market.
My local FreeGeek was selling $5 e-readers in an e-reader bin this weekend.
Is the price of an eReader that big of a deal? They practically pay for themselves with use over time, and they last a ridiculous number of years.
My first Kindle was the K3 Keyboard for $140 in 2011. It finally died in late 2018 after nearly 8 years of use. I regrettably binned it, as I didn’t know you could replace the battery at the time. Shame, I really liked that thing.
I bought a Kindle PW4 for “cheap” ($80 or $90?) in 2019 to replace it, but I hated it after spending some months reading on a larger tablet, Replaced it with a “premium” Boox Nova 2 eReader for $310, and I still use that one today. I plan to just get a cheap battery replacement when it kicks the bucket, as it’s easily user serviceable and a new battery for it is less than $15.
I also got a Kindle Paperwhite Signature in 2023 for $135 as an “upgrade” to the Boox, but it was more a sidegrade. I use both of them alternatingly today.
So I’ve on average paid about $48 a year on eReaders. Seems reasonable considering how many books I’ve gotten for free or very deep discounts via stuff like Bookbub, as well as “free” Prime First reads and Kindle Unlimited books I read over the years as a Prime subscriber, Project Gutenberg and Standard eBooks, as well as digital library access.
I’ve paid more than $48 in one month for subscription services at times that I used less than my eReaders, which see use daily. And you don’t have to be like me and buy multiple, you can buy one reader and use it pretty much indefinitely so long as the battery is user replaceable, so the upfront cost is sort of irrelevant over a long enough time span.
Yeah I am the same, I would rather pay more for a better device, and preferably not one from Amazon if I can help it. Its only a matter of time before they start cracking down even more on side loading as they are in the process of removing backing up your own books already. They were only ever cheap in the first place because Amazon wanted to dominate the market and close up shop around their own bookstore so they heavily subsidised the price and turned a blind eye to piracy.
I upgraded my ancient paperwhite for a PocketBook InkPad Color 3 because I wanted colour and a larger screen to read comics but also something that was more responsive. Sure its never going to beat a good tablet for colour depth or responsiveness, its still eink after all, but its so much nicer to use than my old paperwhite.
For something that I use for at least an hour a day, every day (I had a near 600 week streak on my kindle), I do not see the money spent as a bad investment when they lasting a near decade. I could have just replaced my battery in my paperwhite and carried on using it, but the upsides of a nicer ereader that is away from Amazon was a big pull for me.
I would rather pay more for a better device, and preferably not one from Amazon if I can help it. Its only a matter of time before they start cracking down even more on side loading
They already started that technically with removing USB downloads. I got sick of their shit and jailbroke my Kindles. They live in KOReader now.
It’s crazy. I bought the then-current basic model Kindle for $90 NZD in 2012, which still works. I recently started looking for a new eReader with USB C and without the rubberised coating that slowly turns back into oil. The cheapest I’ve found is over $200.
The current ad-supported basic Kindle is $109 USD, which is just $12 more expensive than it was back in 2012, adjusted for inflation (it was $70 in 2012, which would be $97 today).
It could be cheaper today, but Amazon has clearly pulled back from selling them at a loss hoping to get the costs back from ebook sales.Yeah, I didn’t consider that the exchange rate in 2012 was really good. With the new price and today’s exchange rate, it would be $180 NZD, which isn’t the end of the world, but feels kind of wrong because electronics generally get cheaper the longer they’re on the market.
That being said, it isn’t just Kindles. Kobos used to be ridiculously cheap, and now they’re the same price as Kindles if not more.
I gave up on eReaders after 2 bad experiences with Kindles. I still have the last one I bought but it keeps on rebooting after a couple of minutes and couldn’t find a way to fix it.
I had a look recently and they’re all 180€+ now. Back to real books then.
Kobos are pretty nice. They’re not cheap, as you pointed out, but you can get an older or used one for quite a bit cheaper and it’s just as good. They run Linux. It’s almost completely open, and anything that isn’t might as well be. That said you really don’t need to open it up much, just enough to install something like koreader which basically completely replaces the OS on the thing. It does everything I would ever want to use my ereader for … granted that’s pretty much just “read ebooks”.
They run Linux
No, that’s PocketBook who runs a (old) “naked” Linux. Kobo is AOSP-based; a vendor-ROM without Play Store and thus no “Android” certificate.
Well ok, if you are to call Android a Linux, Matter of opinion. I do run LineageOS on my Leaf btw.
It’s my “opinion” that a device running a slightly modified Linux 2.6 kernel is literally running Linux, yes. Maybe you’re making the point that it’s not a full GNU/Linux distribution that most people imagine when they hear Linux, and that’s a valid and valuable clarification which I thank you for providing, but you don’t need to imply I’m wrong to provide that clarification.
I have an old android tablet that is so slow I can’t really do anything on it. So I turned it into an ebook reader. I just installed moonreader on it and manually add epub files.
Still using my Nook Glowlight Plus 2015. Haven’t needed to change the battery as battery life is still exceptional. I will be sad when I have to swap the battery one day as I’ll need to break the water resistant seal they manufactured this with.
Haven’t felt any desire to upgrade as this device does exactly what I need: store a shitload of books without distractions.
It’s my mission to build one at some stage (when I’ve learned how). ESP32 powered and phone sized. The idea is it’s supposed to feel a little like scrolling your phone while reading a book. Devices like this exist but they’re prohibitively expensive for a lot of people.
Take a look at this: the open book
Same.
In the meantime I’m using (offline) Kobo for the practicality (light-weight, compact, water resistant).
I managed to get KOReader on my Grandpa’s old Kindle. One device has now entertained two people for what is likely a decade or two of combined service.
