I got an email from Amazon that my account has been suspended. Apparently they did not like I've been buying gift cards with lightning. What are they even for then? Why do they sell them in stores?

My evening reading is gone, the books I "bought" are gone and it all came from no-reply email address. You can reach customer support, just login to your account. Wait a minute.

I'll be replacing my e-reader with nostr:npub1a00wj229auzjswlq4s77y4u8eqdx5k9ppatgl8rtv8va65f6mwksum9q3h when it arrives. And will switch to Nostr with whatever I can. What a shitshow.


Amazon is cancer and needs to die


Not your keys (device) not your coins (books).

You vill own nothing and ve happy!


This


Thanks for sharing ☀

Thanks for sharing ☀


I was about to subscribe to audible. I'm finally happy to have found the audiobooks and epub I was looking for on youtube and torrent. Donate in #bitcoin or paypal to the authors you like, with no middlemen. Show that #V4V works
nostr:nevent1qqsrckcekaz0879ur2s0mdchnquwwy3zwl6agtrrxasgel8s70tz8wcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsd4dkxqewy8xum47ctpu0ltgxxsfemeewpjkdyzk9ddfcg286s0dsrqsqqqqqpumpyan


Super curious about nostr:npub1a00wj229auzjswlq4s77y4u8eqdx5k9ppatgl8rtv8va65f6mwksum9q3h 👀


If your Bitcoin lifestyle depends on giftcards you gave up on real adoption.


I switched to Kobo readers and Calibre with DeDRM plugin. I was able to finally own all my past Amazon books.


Do elaborate 🤔


We've been posting about Amazon Books alternatives on out Nostr account.


Giftcards are like prostitutes. You buy them off the shelve. But what you really buy is a sweet lie.

No real feelings and fake orgasms and they dump you after the act.


Crypto adoption must be stopped because CBDC will not take effect 🤣


Gift cards you bought with lightning on like Bitrefill? How / why do they know who sells them? I guess for digital only gift cards it's api acesss.

Did they also cancel your author account too?


You sure you aren’t being “phished”?


That is um, theft.  Book thieves.


Maybe I should start a books on tape service! 🤔 🤣


This is awful... But I guess it is no longer just "not your wallet not your bitcoin," it applies literally to everything.


Every sigle book I bought anywhere is stored on my devices.


For the ereader

For the ereader


grab some digital copies from the web, see things like Anna's Archive.

if buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing.

https://annas-archive.org/


The fee is a subscription fee, not ownership of a copy.


I do not doubt juraj's veracity on this but I do have a question: How would Amazon know what a gift card was bought with? What kind of metadata is included in a gift card?

I bought several hundred dollars worth of Amazon gift cards from Bitrefill. I can imagine that Amazon would know by the serial number generated upon purchase that it came from that vendor but, if they have such an issue with it then why allow Bitrefill to be a vendor at all?

Last thing to note is that as much as I love Kindle it fully sucks wondering if my entire library will get pulled. Sounds like ripe killing grounds for some nostr-based disruption.

nostr:note183d3nd6y70utcx4qlkm30xpcuufzyal46skxxdmq3n70pu7kywas02ctxx


That really sucks and is retarded, sorry man 🫂


I totally recommend the Natural Reader app and the pdfdrive website if you’re a voracious reader. All the free pdf version books you could ever hope for, importable into Natural Reader for easy listening or reading, and of course also save them onto a thumb drive and your Start9 file server for your post apocalyptic library. Let me know and I can give you temp share access to my library. I have a ton of amazing books.


Calibre & Soulseek. 😉


thanks, I'll look into Natural Reader. I mostly read articles or papers, so I don't need access to books that much, but what would be cool is to be able to save for later from both mobile and computer and the app would remember per article where I'm at.


what's the best reader app? I don't need access to books, but I need a good reader app that I can use to read articles, ebooks and pdfs and it would remember my position for each book separately.


Natural Reader is great because you can import any text, website or pdf into the app and simultaneously read AND hear the audio, massively upping your retention.


Yeah.
For similar reason we started with friend our own media server, using Plex. No more missing episodes from Netflix because they are not correct enough, etc.
But of course you have to take care, pay, maintain etc...


I have Plex lifetime membership :)


I'm not surprised 😅


Fuck this. Piracy is justified.


For me it is not really a problem of books, I did not read many books through Amazon, I usually buy them from authors, or just use the reader to read articles and PDFs. So the real problem yesterday was I wanted to finish reading an essay written by a friend and the book reader did not work.

So what is more justified is switching to a more open reading and listening infrastructure than Kindle and Audible (I use Audible a lot and there I lost access to books I paid for - not even with gift cards).

The real question for me is what is the best non corporate or self sovereign reading experience. Hardware will be probably Daylight, which I ordered and it will take some time to get it, until then I have my Pixel Fold with GrapheneOS.

But what about good user friendly reader app? When I see an article I want to read on my desktop, I clicked one button and then I could read it in the bed.


That too. I kinda enjoyed the comfort of being able to get digital content even if paid. (Why not support the authors anyway?) But if I can still lose it after purchase why not just pirate it? Amazon will have a lot of convoncing to do here.

I fell off of regular reading lately, so I'm not too pissed but I'll be more careful if/when I return.


I am an author and I do both Amazon and my own distribution through my web with woocommerce and nostr:npub155m2k8ml8sqn8w4dhh689vdv0t2twa8dgvkpnzfggxf4wfughjsq2cdcvg. When people buy from me directly, they get the files without any DRM bullshit. I try to turn off any DRM where I can (for example Apple allows authors to opt out from DRM and give customers pure epub).

Also even people get the ebook from me, I get to keep 100% instead of 30% through Amazon. But for me it is more important that my content gets to whoever needs it, and Amazon distribution is what many people prefer. It's one click buying and have it in your reader user experience is great and people like to do things the easy way. It removes friction. But it is the infamous turkey problem.


sad, what is audible alternative?


I think 'Librera" is the best open source eBook reader app for Android. It's available through the F-Droid app store.

As for Linux, I don't know for certain I just use the generic pdf reader that comes with my distro.

I hear Foliate is a good Linux eBook reader, and Linux Mint recently announced "Thingy" which sounds corny, but reviewers say it's pretty good.

 https://github.com/linuxmint/thingy


Here's three Librera app link.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.foobnix.pro.pdf.reader


Holy shit that’s scary! I’m also using anonymous kindle with coupons.. :(


I might give it a try again, I know it, the user experience was horrible and it does not solve the problem of sending articles to my reader on GrapheneOS from my computer's browser for reading with one click. I think the user experience is worst from all the readers I've tried.


I was not using anonymous even. I even had to KYC with an ID for marketplace order, because that would make them money transmitter.

How did you manage an anonymous account though? I think they need a credit card that's on your name and prepaid cards don't work. Before you can use an anonymous payment method.


This was in 2015, so might have changed since, but I basically created a disposable email, and keep loading it with Amazon gift cards. Amazon keep trying to “increase” the security of my account by adding additional info, but everything works well so far! 🤩


BTW, I hope you were able to restore “your” book ownership by now!! 🥺


ePub now supports storing your highlights. Have you been able to transfer your highlights and notes? This is an essential piece for me. 🧐


Couple of things to chew on there:

- Books are fresh downloads from the Amazon account.

- I have never highlighted or notated an ebook in my life.

I'll see if I can mark something up and test it for you, though. Should be an easy enough question to answer.