I understand the issues with DRM. I respect Cory's position.
But honestly, Audible is how I listen to audiobooks. If it's not there, I'm not going to buy it. I've pretty much transitioned all of my casual, entertainment reading to audio (still using physical/digital for more technical reading).
This feels like what Gabe Newell said about piracy. For most people, piracy is not a pricing problem, and DRM is not an ethics problem. In both cases, they are service problems. If DRM is keeping consumers from using their audiobook in some device of their choosing, they'll go out of your way to get a DRM-free copy. But if the DRM is sufficiently universal that they don't notice it's there, why would they care?
It's a corner case, but most concretely for me, losing access to the account I had ~30 audible books downloaded on was very annoying. It really hit home the idea that I didn't own the books I'd paid for.
With the member deals, Audible is cheap, and I treat audiobooks as a transient form of amusement and edutainment. They have a generous return policy. The membership is even better now with access to a library of audiobooks. The value I've received so far has been well worth the chunk of change I've forked over even if I lose my library due to Audible shenanigans.
Of all companies, I think Audible treats its customers well.
Does Audible not allow you to import books from other services? I don't understand why you would need to buy your books from Audible unless they've got some kind of weird, arbitrary policy about not playing nicely with anybody else.
I can't speak for Audible, but I have recently started buying my e-books from Kobo instead of Amazon (because really FUCK Amazon) and thanks to crappy restrictions on both ends my books don't work on my Kindle. It's maddening.
There are a few ways to convert epubs to mobi but they are elaborate. I have never bought a Kindle for this reason: Kobo devices tend to be nice and open and they accept external/drm-free epubs/pdfs.
Wait, does Kindle seriously still not support Epub? That's wild.
The only reason I can think of for why an ereader wouldn't at least support importing from an open standard is so Amazon can make sure that you'll never buy books from anyone else.
> The reason it doesn’t bother anyone Is that the conversion is mindless. Calibre automatically converts when you send books to your Kindle.
FWIW, it bothers me, but largely for pragmatic reasons: Unless I routinely delete the automatically converted .mobi files, the size of my ebook library would more than double (.epub files are somewhat smaller than .mobi).
The practical difference between regularly syncing and backing up a multi-Gigabyte library and one that has twice as many files and is >2x larger is pretty significant.
And since I'm not keeping the .mobi files around, the conversion has to be done again every time I copy the book to my Kindle (for example, to re-read it), and the extra delay, particularly when transferring several ebooks, is rather annoying.
You should check out Libby if you haven't already. It allows you to checkout audiobooks from your local library for free! I've transitions pretty much all of my book consumption to this
In my experience, the audio quality of OverDrive audiobooks is poor, almost to the extent that I can't listen to them. I don't know if it is because I never figured out the right setting (I don't think so) but I prefer Audible.
Moreover, the quality of Audible interpretations is rarely good. Once in a while, they drag you into dirty schemes, like interpreting only a portion of book, but selling it nevertheless (I am looking at you, Bruce Schneier, and your Data and Goliath so called audiobook).
Ouch, that sucks. I've specifically looked for "unabridged" content when I have bought things on Audible (I rarely do, preferring physical books, but audiobooks are starting to become part of my commute) and so far haven't run into that, but I have a couple that I haven't started listening to yet. I'll have to pay more attention in the future.
What was the point of this comment? You listen using a service that abuses its users and you want everyone to know it, sure, but...there's literally no substance to the comment. It's pure fluff. You didn't even explain why or give any reasoning whatsoever. Just, "I do [thing]."
If the way Audible treats me is abuse, I can only say I wish more companies were abusive.
It is absolutely frictionless and cheaper than competing services.
All my titles are available on all my devices, and progress syncs perfectly.
As a consumer, it is far far easier and more convenient than having to manually download mp3s off a shared drive or something, never mind the issue of how you sync progress.
This gets to one of the main issues. Opponents of DRM need an equivalent service (ubiquity of apps for listening, reliability of progress syncing, discoverability of new content) and they need to market it. Audible has become synonymous with audiobooks for many people, so alternate services need better marketing to reach those consumers.
> You listen using a service that abuses its users
It doesn't abuse me. It makes my life net better than it was before I used it.
This is a really important point for you - many people value what they practically get from a service - not abstract concepts of freedom.
What I care about is getting to listen to the book. I don't care about your DRM problems. I don't care about file formats. I care about the words that the author wrote going into my head. That's what I came for. If they give me that I'm a happy customer.
> which literally contributed nothing at all to the discussion
They contributed the same thought as I expanded on - what they care about is the book, not technical issues. That’s a useful thing to comment because it’s what 99% of people care about.
But honestly, Audible is how I listen to audiobooks. If it's not there, I'm not going to buy it. I've pretty much transitioned all of my casual, entertainment reading to audio (still using physical/digital for more technical reading).