eBook reading has gotten truly painful the last few years - due to further segmentation and DRM. I've now completely changed what I do and bought an Onyx Boox (Air C for the curious).<p>Now, I buy whatever I want wherever I want it / is cheaper - I will not pirate literature. I then never download it from the retailer - I immediately go and pirate the thing I've purchased. It's actually just easier. It's easier for me to have a torrent server sync eBook/cbx/pdfs to a folder, that's rear-mounted in google drive and shows up on my device, than it is to deal with what app has what book. Add to this multiple languages and you can see why this becomes a bigger pain.<p>It could be a niche issue.. But it's also a reason that Kindle/Kobo just aren't big here in Israel, and Android tablets are.
I have watched this stuff, but only from afar, because I have a minority viewpoint I guess. I don't find reading comics on a tablet satisfying, my vision is just too poor, and so still mostly read comics on desktop.<p>To further improve the reading experience for myself I recently wrote a native, cross-platform, reader for desktop[0]. It will mostly appeal to people who still live in a file-based world (.cbz/.cbr/.cbx...).<p>[0]<a href="https://github.com/mftb0/cbxv-gotk3">https://github.com/mftb0/cbxv-gotk3</a>
I've been toying with getting back into reading comics for a few years, but haven't because I've had little faith in online readers. I seriously looked into buying a tablet just to read comics. Mainly when travelling and I'm too tired to read a book. But when I investigated the whole system (Amazon/Kindle/Apple store/Comixology) whatever just looked too obtuse and weird to use. I want something simple that allows me to find good comics and read them on a tablet without a bunch of bullshit. And I'm willing to pay for it.<p>It's so disheartening that between publishers, tech, and copyright madness we can't seem to figure this out.<p>Like most digital media, everything is gimped for copyright reasons. Often to the point where enjoying the actual media becomes close to impossible.
To add to this, Amazon recently got rid of DRM-free stuff from Comixology.<p>Then as part of Kindle-unlimited, to fight Kindle-unlimited piracy, they rolled out a new drm system everywhere which took out DRM removal on purchased books in the crossfire.<p>Along with Amazon music changes preventing previewing songs before purchase I have no idea what's going on there. I guess streaming allows them to skim more from publishers/authors hence why they're pushing it so hard, readers/listeners be damned.
Comixology is going to have its lunch eaten by Naver's Webtoon and its alternatives. Disinvestment like this is only going to exacerbate the issue.
I wonder how many of Comixology's issues also track the downfall of the American Comicbook Industry. Marvel, DC and other American Comicbook companies aren't exactly setting the world on fire with their sales. There have been months where a single manga volume will outsell the entire American industry.
A former employee has discussed his experience at comixology when amazon made them migrate to amazon's backend in a series of tweets:
thread 1: <a href="https://twitter.com/CocktailsAndInk/status/1625233338741956642" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/CocktailsAndInk/status/16252333387419566...</a>
thread 2: <a href="https://twitter.com/CocktailsAndInk/status/1625623760685436931" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/CocktailsAndInk/status/16256237606854369...</a>
thread 3: <a href="https://twitter.com/CocktailsAndInk/status/1626342140807639040" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/CocktailsAndInk/status/16263421408076390...</a>