How to get Amazon to stop accepting returned Kindle ebooks

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by martienne

—Books got written before modern copyright and corporate publishers.
—Books got written in strictly socialist countries either because people loved writing and would write regardless, or because they got paid a salary for being an author rather than having to live off royalties.

But sure, there might be less books written, slightly less. In a content driven model, quality not quantity would rule though.
Not necessarily a bad thing. There'd be no hyping trashy, mediocre potential bestsellers with cheesy marketing campaigns. No myriad of x10 "how to" books on the same topic, asking fat sums for slim books that are just a re-hash of existing material. There'd be one or two good "how-to" books per topic.

Books got written before copyright, yes. But a lot less books got written. If people want to read books that you call trash, it's none of your business. Having more books is better than having less books - it leads to better quality. If we had only one or two how-to books what's the incentive for them to be any good? If people are asking too much money for a book, then readers don't have to buy it, they can buy something else.

Readers should be able to decide for themselves what book to read, they don't need some commissar to pick their books for them.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Glad to see that Amazon is shutting off this person who is obviously abusing the system. There's a "Look Inside" option for a reason. Or you could just read a few reviews.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

Having more books is better than having less books - it leads to better quality. [snip]

Readers should be able to decide for themselves what book to read, they don't need some commissar to pick their books for them.

Faulty logic. Greater quantity <> greater quality. But your last comment is spot on.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

A friend of mine just sent me an email he got from Amazon. He wanted to remain anonymous, so I can't tell you who. But I will vouch for him. He isn't sure how many ebooks he's returned, but he estimated the total to be around 30. I hope that's not true; in absolute terms that's a pretty low number. A fair number of people are going to be getting this email at some point.

Here is the text of the email:

I've bought about 800 eBooks from Amazon and have returned about 5.
30, no matter how many he had bought in total, seems quite a lot.
Might be explainable, but quite frankly from a distance, being in Amazon's shoes, I'd consider it a bit "fishy" as well.

[Yolina]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Glad to see that Amazon is shutting off this person who is obviously abusing the system. There's a "Look Inside" option for a reason. Or you could just read a few reviews.

Just sayin' but this thread is nearly 4 years old

[Jessica Lares]

I have only returned ONE book. Why? Because I could either buy it for $80, or I could rent it for $14 and it would last me the semester. So I returned it and then hit the rent button when I got to class a week later.

It's an outdated Adobe book to begin with, for CS5. And I'm now over a month into the class and finding that this isn't something I'm ever going to pick up and look through again. It's pretty much knowledge I'm grasping too quickly and the only time I'm even opening the book is to look at the homework instructions.

Appreciated having the extra money to pay the tuition to begin with.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by calvin-c

Faulty logic. Greater quantity <> greater quality. But your last comment is spot on.

My logic is solid. More competition leads to better quality, and not just in books. Why build a better mousetrap if you have no competition? Competition provides an incentive to make a better product. Without competition, someone else decides for you what is quality. More books doesn't mean that all the books are going to be quality; with more books you will get more bad books. But with more books, the reader has more power to decide what is worth reading. If less books eliminates a book that someone would like to read, that is a reduction in quality.

[PurpleStar]

I have returned a few kindle books because I really did make an accidental purchase. As in, they were listed in the free section, but then realized they weren't free. So I returned it. It's only happened 2 or 3 times so no big deal. Now I always double check the price first before I click on buy!

[whitearrow]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

My logic is solid. More competition leads to better quality, and not just in books.

It really isn't. That concept is really only true with regard to commodities. The quality of a book is totally subjective in many respects (the most important ones, many would argue). Books aren't hammers or ladders.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by whitearrow

It really isn't. That concept is really only true with regard to commodities. The quality of a book is totally subjective in many respects (the most important ones, many would argue). Books aren't hammers or ladders.

Books aren't commodities, yes, but they are still subject to competition. Hamburgers aren't commodities either, one hamburger is not interchangeable with any other. However, restaurants are still subject to competition. Without competition, there is no incentive to make a better hamburger. Without competition, your choice is to take it or leave it. Whether it is a commodity or not having more choices leads to better quality than having less choices.

The quality of books is subjective, and that is why having more choices is better than having less choices. If I like a book, it's an important book to me. It's not my concern that someone else finds some other book important. It's true, there are books that few if anyone want to read, but that is a small price to pay to maximize readers choices. Eliminating books that people want to read is eliminating quality books.

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Just sayin' but this thread is nearly 4 years old

Ooops!