Now I’m going to refuse to purchase one even harder!
I honestly forgot people even buy these
Not only that, I wouldn’t even use one if they paid me. How did they convince people to pay to be spied on and advertised to?
I was saving up for one. Nvm lol
What the fuck is Alexa+ 🤣🤣🤣
After AI became a thing, Amazon decided you needed to pay a subscribtion to use Alexa with an LLM instead of the basic keyword recognition model
Sounds like another case of Amazon trying to out-Amazon itself
Well someone’s gotta pay for that small country’s worth of wasted electricity
Their users will accept this.
Not this one. I’ve been a Prime member for many years out of convenience (and because I live in the rurals and need to ship a lot of things to the house). Amazon completely fucked it up for themselves with regard to my subscription this past year or two, I’m done.
- Removed the ability to download and sideload Kindle books
- Ads in Prime Video
- Followed by even more ads in Prime Video
- Now this, and I don’t even own an Alexa device
I’m done. Subscription is cancelled (has been for some time now, but unfortunately it was reupped annual). I’ve found alternative sources for several things I need to buy monthly/regularly that I previously would purchase on Amazon. Video was already trashed, but I barely used it. I’ve jailbroken my Kindles, converted all my books to EPUB, and installed KOReader on them. Wasn’t a hard transition since I’ve had a Boox device as my main reader for some years now anyway. I’ve started buying my books from Kobo and other sources.
Looking into other services for online purchases and shipping. It’ll be less convenient, and I’ll still buy from Amazon in the event I absolutely have to, but I’d like to minimize that now.
How do you jailbreak your Kindle?
Depends on the model and firmware, but for most, Winterbreak is the current method.
Do note if your Kindle is updated to version 5.18.x currently it’s not possible to jailbreak. There is ongoing work on a new exploit though, and a new jailbreak method (or update to Winterbreak) is expected later this year.
Edit - actually, if you’re on firmware 5.18.0 the jailbreak may work. 5.18.1 and above it definitely doesn’t.
I have a prime subscription, simply for the delivery and grocery discounts, but the ads on their streaming service have convinced me to stop using it entirely and just pirate all their shows / movies.
I never found much worth watching on Prime, to be honest, even before the ads issue.
As for Prime, I still benefit from the Prime shipping, but a lot of stores on Amazon ship free now even without Prime, and given where I live, 2-day shipping is not a thing. It’s usually more like 4 to 7 days. I’m generally in no rush either way.
My main benefits were shipping and books, plus free games on Prime and GOG. But now the shipping is almost irrelevant, they’ve screwed the book thing, so all that’s left is the games, many of which I won’t even play.
Never had issues sideloading epubs with Calibre on my PW.
No, Amazon took away the “Download and transfer via USB” option when downloading your books. Making it more difficult to strip DRM, but also to conveniently add it to multiple devices. I prefer to keep my eReaders offline and manage them with Calibre.
Regarding sideloading EPUBs with Calibre, it’s not really doing that. Under normal circumstances Kindle can’t read EPUB format at all, so Calibre will convert it to a native format, either MOBI or AZW3 generally. But with a jailbroken Kindle and KOReader, you can actually read EPUBs natively. I’ve actually converted my entire collection to EPUB and deleted the AZW3 and KFX files.
Oh my bad.
Any reason why those formats are worse than epub?
It’s really just that only Amazon uses AZW3 and KFX. MOBI is deprecated, and nobody really uses it anymore, not even Amazon. KFX is DRMed to hell, and I’m not sure about it, but most AZW3 files are just DRM wrappers for EPUB anyway. This is why the KindleUnpack plugin for Calibre can strip out EPUBs from most AZW3 files and retain formatting without needing conversion.
Basically, AZW3 and KFX are for Kindle, and only for Kindle. EPUB is an open standard that literally every device that’s not a Kindle uses.
I already own a non-Amazon reader that’s my main reader, and I want to move away from Amazon’s ecosystem.
Maybe I didnt read it properly when Calibre was sending it to my reader.
Regarding formats: As expected (Insert XKCD comic about standards)
Like always, Black Mirror has an episode on this.
Isn’t Black Mirror a manual at this point?
Or a documentary.
Alt history
S## and E##?
I bought an Alexa echo long before I actually cared about privacy and I regret it a lot. It’s been a pricey paper weight since then. I wish I could flash some kind of OS and use it as a sound bar or something. I can’t even use the Bluetooth without signing in with amazon account, which requires a lot of data including phone number.
Do you have a shotgun? Makes a respectable flying target.
Once….which is probably the point.
I’m amazed it didn’t already as someone who has never used or heard one being used. What’s the business model? Just the data harvesting for purpose of their other businesses?
Alexa has ads since the beginning and I can’t imagine that would change just because they are replacing the backend with AI. The first time Echo wasted my time trying to selling me something in my own home was also the last time. I don’t understand how anyone can be okay with that.
Fuck, the Echo Show series is basically just a glorified ad machine with a clock feature.
Make the bad even worse. Is there a word for this?
Enshitification
Got 8 Google Minis around the house, mostly ceiling mount. First ad that comes out that bitches mouth, I’m taking a 12-gauge to every motherfucking one of them, patch the roof later.
You sir, and I say this with no hyperbole; are a hero.
🎵I got a shotgun, and here’s the plot,
Takin’ Minis out with a flurry of buck shot,
Boom, boom, boom! Yeah, I was gunnin’,
And then you look, all you see is Googles runnin’,
And fallin’ and yellin’ and pushin’ and screamin’,
And cussin’, I stepped back and I kept bustin’🎶
Dude stop. There only so awesome I can think you are. Fucking legend.
Im sure they’ll try to get you to order ammo as they explode.
<pump-action sound>
“How’s your supply of shells? Winchester is having a blowout sale on 00-buck. To learn more…”
First ad that comes out that bitches mouth, I’m taking a 12-gauge to every motherfucking one of them, patch the roof later.
“Further work from our user experience team has resulted in several recommendations, including revising the Google Mini for the North American market to add a Kevlar layer to the case and using data from the accelerometer to treat an abrupt, rapid acceleration with a threshold above a certain level as “undesirable behavior/behavior needs improvement” user feedback to Alexa+'s prior prompt response.”
As if I was ever stupid enough to use Alexa.
Anyone see the newest Black Mirror season?
Fuck I was just thinking about “common people” when I saw this. Definitely the best episode of that season
That one was hard to watch. It just kept getting worse and worse.
I didn’t realize they were still producing episodes. Are they as good as S1-3?
Some of them are, but a few others feel like rehashing old themes without adding much. Still mostly worth watching imo
I can’t even stand when my Google assistant says more than three words to respond 😂 if I start hearing ads out of that thing I will get rid of it faster than anything I’ve ever done
They already do…
So, South park?
And yet people will buy it, like they did with Nintendo switch 2! See you when it really happens.
