Comment by dgfitz

3 days ago

My spouse bought us kindles recently, and it popped in my head today that at some point e-books are going to have ads interspersed…

21 comments

dgfitz

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spc476  3 days ago

I've found books that had ads inserted into them [1]. It seemed to be a thing from maybe the 1960/1970s. The ad page was a different type of paper, and no text from the book was on it (that is---the ad wasn't on one side and book text on the other).

[1] One example: https://boston.conman.org/2002/12/31.1

roland35  3 days ago

Kindles already can have ads on the sleep screen! Unless you paid for the ad free version.

  • internet_points  2 days ago

    i sent an email to have them removed. it was a thing some years ago at least (though I don't know if US-ians are allowed to do that or if it's just in the EU)

  • raphael_l  2 days ago

    I actually recently purchased my first Kindle, as well as an gift upgrade for my partner. I researched and talked to a friend of mine who owns one.

    At first I was determined I would purchase the ad-free version (I think the price difference was like ~20€), but after talking to my friend they kind of convinced me that the ad version is not so bad.

    2 points on this: 1. The ad appears only on the lockscreen of the device, so you see it once and then never again until you reopen it. The ad is also only for a book in the Kindle store, never anything else (this might seem trivial, but I think one of the negative aspects of advertising is being blasted with stimuli about so many different things you don't care for)

    2. The ads are personalized on books you bought and therefor a sort of recommendation engine. Both my friend and my partner told me they got some inspiration from those ads to find books they liked.

    So all in all while I despise ads, I gave this one a try. Personally (and yeah, I know – subconciously) I have never looked at the lockscreen apart from the first time I launched it. It's a relatively non-intrusive ad about a book that I don't even need to engage with. And in case something relevant is on there, it leads to a good outcome for me.

    This is advertising done well for me at least.

  • dgfitz  3 days ago

    Oh my…I’ll have to ask, I bet they did. Unreal.

    • whycome  3 days ago

      So far, Kobos are the way better option in my opinion. No ads, and it's much easier to add your own books. It's (currently) a much more open system. But, not without fault. They've shut down some older readers for no good reason.

      7 replies →

    • warner25  3 days ago

      If you put them into the Kindle Kids mode you get a much cleaner, more streamlined, ad-free experience without paying extra. I've seen a few adults say that they prefer it to the full-featured mode.

culi  3 days ago

There are kindle alternatives. Luckily the technology isn't that advanced and any/all of them pretty much MUST support a general PDF (or whatever other similar format). You might have to manage your own library a bit but that means you can just use these devices completely offline

I think e-readers are not that high on the list of technologies most at risk to be taken over by ads