Amazon Shuts of Kindle Book purchases on Android App

[Duleigh]

Amazon recently sent this message: and I found it at the Android Authority

“To remain in compliance with updated Google Play Store policies, the option to buy or rent Kindle books or subscribe to Kindle Unlimited will no longer be available in the Kindle app for Android with the release of app version 8.58,” read an excerpt of an email sent to users of the Kindle app for Android.

The changes come after Google issued a new billing policy for Play Store apps, forcing apps to use Google Play billing for purchases or be removed from the storefront.

Google Play billing means that the search giant would gain a cut from any purchases made. Amazon presumably feels that no in-app purchases are better than Google getting a slice of revenue.
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Ebooks aren’t the only Amazon service affected by the billing policy, though. Amazon Music and Audible purchases were also turned off in their respective Android apps.

The company explained via its email to users that there are three alternative ways to get new books:

1. Visit amazon.com/ebooks in your device browser and buy them here.
2. Add books to your Amazon wishlist via the app, then visit amazon.com/wishlist via your browser to buy these books.
3. Use the Kindle Unlimited subscription service to download a variety of books.

It’s worth reiterating that the third option requires you to be a Kindle Unlimited subscriber already, as you can’t subscribe to the service via the Android Kindle app due to these changes. So you’ll need to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited via your phone/tablet/PC browser first if you aren’t a member.

There’s also another potential workaround, as we were able to purchase books via an older version of the Android app (version 8.53). You therefore might not want to update your Kindle app if you still want in-app book purchases — although we wouldn’t be surprised if a server-side change eventually disables this option.

Android Authority,
By Hadlee Simons
June 1, 2022

But what if you got your kindle app directly from Amazon?

 

[tenyari]

This doesn't surprise me.

Right now technology is full of people trying to become multiple levels of middle-people getting between you and the maker of the item you wish to obtain.

Look at food delivery. Many of those services charge you a delivery fee, and then ALSO charge the restaurant. The result being that many restaurants sell their food on the apps at a loss, and then beg customers to order directly - and with the pandemic they struggle to get those customers to come in and sit down.

During the pandemic my local government had to step in and pass a law limiting what the food delivery apps could charge restaurants because they were trying to charge things like 40,50, or 60% of the price as a commission on items that are sold in the restaurant at often only 5-10% above cost... Many people I know who own restaurants no longer take home ANY salary at all, even after having to lay off a lot of their staff. They're essentially only still open because they can't afford to close and break leases or other things.

It's a pointless middle man eating out of both ends of the transaction - made worse by their drivers being 'contractors' that don't qualify as employees and so are underpaid and lacking benefits.

"Apple and Android" app stores, and platforms like Steam for games - take massive cuts from the vendors - again causing the actual product maker to have almost no profit. MOST of the profit ends up in the hands of the middle man.

A generation ago we had a whole thing about "Fair Trade" - you still see logos for that on some food products. It was a whole movement to cut these middle men out because third world farmers were getting almost NOTHING all while the price of food was going up... I for example, buy my coffee now from a 'small group of hippies' that fly out to places like Rwanda a couple times a year and direct buy from farmers. I end up with coffee that costs me half of what it would at 'retail', while the farmer gets a payment several times higher than if she was to sell it to some place like Maxwell. ( sweetmarias - that's my coffee supplier, and I started this because the first farmers I got from was a co-oop of women from both sides of the genocide using a farm to rebuild their community bonds).


We're almost getting to the point where we need "Fair Trade" for apps, games, and the "DLC" you buy for them (and an eBook is basically DLC for your Kindle/eBook Reader app).


Amazon is doing the right thing here - cutting out the middle man. Amazon can afford to. A lot of smaller people making other kinds of apps can't.
Take video game makers. If you're a small studio and aren't on Steam you effectively don't exist. And Steam takes 30% or so of your sales - so forget about paying your staff wages, or even yourself.

If you think these middle men are bad in eBooks... look at what's happening to musicians. We always thing people who are famous for their songs are filthy rich, but there are cases in recent years where that year's #1 pop chart hit made the artist less than a thousand or two total... because the apps take something like a 99% cut. I haven't sold an eBook, but if I were to sell an eBook for $10, and they paid me only $0.01 and kept the rest, my name would essentially be John Legend or Beyonce or something... Those two are only well off because they're famous enough to do concerts.

 

[Duleigh]

This doesn't surprise me.

Right now technology is full of people trying to become multiple levels of middle-people getting between you and the maker of the item you wish to obtain.

Look at food delivery. Many of those services charge you a delivery fee, and then ALSO charge the restaurant. The result being that many restaurants sell their food on the apps at a loss, and then beg customers to order directly - and with the pandemic they struggle to get those customers to come in and sit down.

During the pandemic my local government had to step in and pass a law limiting what the food delivery apps could charge restaurants because they were trying to charge things like 40,50, or 60% of the price as a commission on items that are sold in the restaurant at often only 5-10% above cost... Many people I know who own restaurants no longer take home ANY salary at all, even after having to lay off a lot of their staff. They're essentially only still open because they can't afford to close and break leases or other things.

It's a pointless middle man eating out of both ends of the transaction - made worse by their drivers being 'contractors' that don't qualify as employees and so are underpaid and lacking benefits.

"Apple and Android" app stores, and platforms like Steam for games - take massive cuts from the vendors - again causing the actual product maker to have almost no profit. MOST of the profit ends up in the hands of the middle man.

A generation ago we had a whole thing about "Fair Trade" - you still see logos for that on some food products. It was a whole movement to cut these middle men out because third world farmers were getting almost NOTHING all while the price of food was going up... I for example, buy my coffee now from a 'small group of hippies' that fly out to places like Rwanda a couple times a year and direct buy from farmers. I end up with coffee that costs me half of what it would at 'retail', while the farmer gets a payment several times higher than if she was to sell it to some place like Maxwell. ( sweetmarias - that's my coffee supplier, and I started this because the first farmers I got from was a co-oop of women from both sides of the genocide using a farm to rebuild their community bonds).


We're almost getting to the point where we need "Fair Trade" for apps, games, and the "DLC" you buy for them (and an eBook is basically DLC for your Kindle/eBook Reader app).


Amazon is doing the right thing here - cutting out the middle man. Amazon can afford to. A lot of smaller people making other kinds of apps can't.
Take video game makers. If you're a small studio and aren't on Steam you effectively don't exist. And Steam takes 30% or so of your sales - so forget about paying your staff wages, or even yourself.

If you think these middle men are bad in eBooks... look at what's happening to musicians. We always thing people who are famous for their songs are filthy rich, but there are cases in recent years where that year's #1 pop chart hit made the artist less than a thousand or two total... because the apps take something like a 99% cut. I haven't sold an eBook, but if I were to sell an eBook for $10, and they paid me only $0.01 and kept the rest, my name would essentially be John Legend or Beyonce or something... Those two are only well off because they're famous enough to do concerts.

Amazon has their own android app store, and there's literally dozens more. Even Samsung has an app store. The woefully out of date but still handy Literotica app is an example of an app obtained outside of Google Play. Will Amazon continue book sales through versions of Kindle obtained outside of Google Play?

I personally believe that there's a lot of information that we're not being told. Amazon and Jeff Bezos' relationship with honesty is fleeting at best, and just because they sell books doesn't make them the good guys. Like the New York Times best sellers list, if your opinions differ from the accepted opinions of the Uberlords your book may become difficult to find. As for Alphabet, their legal but repugnant method of collecting information on you and selling it is revolting. I believe that there's a battle between Amazon and Alphabet (over who will control the flow of information? or maybe just money), and this is just a salvo in the battle.

Personally, I don't purchase books through the Kindle App and Amazon's suggested work-around is my #2 preferred method of book purchase. (#1 is the tried and true brick and mortar book store) I find small screens too small to see the details, and I NEVER use my android phone to read anything other than news headlines, and Facebook nonsense. If I want to read a kindle book I use a tablet and not an android tablet. The only iAnything that I own is a small iPad because it links to my treadmill making it a "smart" treadmill, and for the Kindle app.

 

[MrPixel]

This sort of nonsense brings to mind Fahrenheit 451 and Rollerball.

...Jeff Bezos' relationship with honesty is fleeting at best,...

Exactamundo.

 

[Duleigh]

This sort of nonsense brings to mind Fahrenheit 451 and Rollerball.



Exactamundo.

I was thinking of 1984 and Animal Farm.

 

[shakna]

Amazon has their own android app store, and there's literally dozens more. Even Samsung has an app store. The woefully out of date but still handy Literotica app is an example of an app obtained outside of Google Play. Will Amazon continue book sales through versions of Kindle obtained outside of Google Play?

Yes, Amazon is continuing sales through Kindle versions that are not distributed through the Play store. Though, they were looking at similar changes when sold through Apple's App store, for similar reasons.

Amazon's own store, Roku, and others are unaffected at this point, and should remain so.

Currently you can easily add Amazon's store on Android, but are screwed on Apple, however Google are also making it harder to sideload apps, with the next major update coming with even more scary security warnings.

For developers the message is clear - Apple & Google want to eat from everyone else's plate.

 

[Duleigh]

Yes, Amazon is continuing sales through Kindle versions that are not distributed through the Play store. Though, they were looking at similar changes when sold through Apple's App store, for similar reasons.

Amazon's own store, Roku, and others are unaffected at this point, and should remain so.

Currently you can easily add Amazon's store on Android, but are screwed on Apple, however Google are also making it harder to sideload apps, with the next major update coming with even more scary security warnings.

For developers the message is clear - Apple & Google want to eat from everyone else's plate.

Android power users will quickly find a work-around to the "security" updates (there's dozens of websites dedicated to fixing what google adds into Android) it's the average users that won't even know that their choices have been severely limited by corporate godheads. Will this cut the ability of authors to reach their target audience? For established, entrenched authors the answer is no, but what will happen to self-publishing?

Of course this had to happen now that I have something I want to self publish

 

[lovecraft68]

This sort of nonsense brings to mind Fahrenheit 451 and Rollerball.



Exactamundo.

Why not, we're already living 1984 and Atlas Shrugs, may as well toss in some others.