I think I’ll be going back to using Powell’s Books and Biblio.com for my book links for a while, and maybe permanently.
Amazon Killing Mobile Apps That Use Its Data
It’s all about the money-grubbing “Mineminenotyoursgivemeyourmoney” mentality that’s turning humanity into nothing but a target market, and corporations into gods.
I spit.
I guess I’m not clear on what is so horrible about this. If I understand it correctly, these other app developers are trying to make a buck off of data and information that Amazon has been at some pains to gather and maintain. What’s the benefit to Amazon for allowing this access?
I think the big beef is that Amazon’s whole model — initially — was openness and sharing, and that’s how it built up its huge following. (I found the comments below that item very instructive in that regard.) But in the last couple of years it seems to have morphed into just another giant corporation that’s making sure to kill anyone that’s not IT. Even Microsoft eventually had to agree to allow Apple to use its programs like MS Office. But Amazon is getting more and more secretive and punitive, which is not what it was in the beginning.
I suppose I might not react against this so strongly if it hadn’t been doing so many other things to quash people in the last few months. With what it’s now trying to do with the Kindle means that it not only wants to be The Whole Show, but it wants to make sure it can ram its agenda (advertising etc) down our throats and we no longer have any avenue to escape it. When any corporation starts behaving that way, I pretty much automatically start to oppose it.