Amazon no more

[prendrelemick]

I have resolved to stop doing any more buisness with Amazon. This article -http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/week-amazon-insider-feature-treatment-employees-work -highlights the reasons, but I had already decided before I read it. The last time I got a book from them I felt ashamed of myself and decided to stop. This is not a crusade or anything, just a personal decision, their coporate constitution does not match my personal one.

So anyway, I need to continue to feed my addiction (for books), but not from them. Can anyone recommend another source? especially for downloads.

[gustave dore]

Bookzz and mobilism are good for downloads. Piratebay and kickasstorrents have some valuable books.

[Methinks]

Bookzz and mobilism are good for downloads. Piratebay and kickasstorrents have some valuable books.

Bookzz I'm not sure of, but aren't mobilism, piratebay and torrents pirating?

Prendrelemick: perhaps Barns N Noble online, or Google books, etc. Can't help you much. I prefer physical books and bookstores.

[gustave dore]

He asked for downloads, he didn't specify on whether he wanted legal sites. If you want legal, project Gutenberg.

[prendrelemick]

Well I did mean legal downloads, but that was in my niave ignorant days (before I read your post).

[gustave dore]

Nothing wrong with a little piracy if you only do it a little and still support artists.

[prendrelemick]

Hang on a minute! I'm supposed to be making a strong stand against corporate greed here, must check the old moral compass first.

[waltzinmathilda]

Yes, Project Gutenberg is a good one for downloads. Speaking of "flash and blood" books, I find myself resorting more and more to bookdepository.com (I'm pretty sure they provide some options for kindle, too). They don't charge you for shipping fees, which is pretty decent of them. I have only recently come across the news of Amazon's alleged exploitment of employees and, if the accusations turn out to be true I will probably follow in your steps...

[TheFifthElement]

www.hive.co.uk are good. If you favourite your local bookshop they also receive a percentage of every sale.
A lot of the publishing houses also offer e-book sales directly.

[TheFifthElement]

Yes, Project Gutenberg is a good one for downloads. Speaking of "flash and blood" books, I find myself resorting more and more to bookdepository.com (I'm pretty sure they provide some options for kindle, too). They don't charge you for shipping fees, which is pretty decent of them. I have only recently come across the news of Amazon's alleged exploitment of employees and, if the accusations turn out to be true I will probably follow in your steps...

Book Depository is owned by Amazon

[TheFifthElement]

Yes, Project Gutenberg is a good one for downloads. Speaking of "flash and blood" books, I find myself resorting more and more to bookdepository.com (I'm pretty sure they provide some options for kindle, too). They don't charge you for shipping fees, which is pretty decent of them. I have only recently come across the news of Amazon's alleged exploitment of employees and, if the accusations turn out to be true I will probably follow in your steps...

Duplicate

[Dreamwoven]

Its amazing how corporations get in everywhere. I had no idea Amazon was so big. We live in a world of gigantic companies, all too big to fail. The ordoliberals would have turned in their graves.

the other side of this is that we now live in a society where big business and big government work hand-in-glove. All a bit reminiscent of 1930s fascism...

[waltzinmathilda]

Book Depository is owned by Amazon

Gosh, you are right! I've just visited the section "about us" on their website and, indeed, they mention the acquisition of bookdep by amazon. I wasn't aware of it, at all. Thanks for telling me

[YesNo]

One of the things I like about the ebooks from Amazon is that they store notes and highlights on the books I've purchased and sync them across devices. They also do this for the free books they offer and which I could download elsewhere. This adds value to those books and makes me want to use the Kindle app to read them since I can also annotate them.

[Sancho]

Back in the mid 90s I kept hearing about this new-fangled thing called the Internet. In the spirit of investigation, my wife and I went down to Sears and bought an HP 386 computer. We brought it home, plugged it in, coupled it to the phone line, and set out to discover the Internet. We found Netscape Navigator and then the wife said, well now what do we do? I said I didn't know, but I'd heard of an Internet bookstore called Amazon and it was supposed to be a big deal. So I typed in Amazon. Well we immediately got a bunch of hits for - Amazonian women, totally naked, big girls, in the wild, jungle vixens ... Click here.

So I did. Well you know what popped up on the screen. My wife rolled her eyes and said she figured it would be something like that, and then stomped out of the room. I was there for hours.

Anyway, as for Jeff Bezos' Amazon, it's a growth company and still in a growth phase. Despite The Guardian's view that the way to a better society is through bureaucratic regulation and taxation, I'll make the argument that Amazon is industrious because it's free, and rich because it's industrious.* Besides, they do generate a lot of tax revenue. In a rare moment of clear-headedness I made one of the few good stock-buying calls of my life and got into Amazon early. I made a lot of money on it and I've paid a lot of capital-gains tax on it. And it's a call anybody in the free world could've made who was willing to risk the capital up front.

*By the way, I sort of ripped off that phrase from a British Monarch.
Here's George III round about 1780 on the loss of the American Colonies:

A people spread over an immense tract of fertile land, industrious because free, and rich because industrious, presently became a market for the Manufactures and Commerce of the Mother Country. s, presently became a market for the Manufactures and Commerce of the Mother Country. An importance was soon generated, which from its origin to the late conflict was mischievous to Britain, because it created an expense of blood and treasure worth more at this instant, if it could be at our command, than all we ever received from America. The wars of 1744, of 1756, and 1775, were all entered into from the encouragements given to the speculations of settling the wilds of North America.

He goes on in his endorsement of unbridled capitalism:

This compartative view of our former territories in America is not stated with any idea of lessening the consequence of a future friendship and connection with them; on the contrary it is to be hoped we shall reap more advantages from their trade as friends than ever we could derive from them as Colonies; for there is reason to suppose we actually gained more by them while in actual rebellion, and the common open connection cut off, than when they were in obedience to the Crown...

I admit this correlation between Amazon and the American War for Independence has its limitations. Anyway, Mick, you can always use Amazon to find stuff and then buy it from a small bookstore. I like Powell's in Portland, Oregon.