Cory Doctorow: "Hardware ebook readers are a dead end"

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Does it make much difference? Besides the point was there isn't one language. You are reinforcing my point with Kotlin.

No it doesn't make much/any difference - I was just correcting a minor misstatement.

I totally agree with you about the need for multiple languages.

Preferred by who? Edit: I see it's Google, so likely politics as they never had a Java licence for the flavour Android needs.

Yes - it's Google's recommendation for new Android projects, and their "Kotlin first" policy means that they'll be releasing new APIs etc for Kotlin first.

I'm not so sure it's (just) political. Kotlin is a much better language than Java (IMHO), and the announcement has been very warmly received amongst developers. Bearing in mind the level of applause at Google I/O (2017, I think) for the initial announcement that Kotlin was being adopted as a first-class language for Android, it appears I'm not the only one with that opinion.

But the point is that writing an App for Android isn't going to use the same language as your washing machine controller.

I completely agree - I wasn't objecting to the point of your post, just correcting a minor error. From what you've been writing, I'd say we're pretty much on the same page about what's needed to be a proper programmer (though perhaps we differ in some language preferences ).

[ZodWallop]

Well, we can stop laughing at Cory's inaccurate prediction on ereaders. Amazon will discontinue the Kindle. Goodereader confirms it from their 'sources'

Note how quickly it moves from 'they might' to 'they will'. I think it's... 40 seconds?

[Quoth]

Alexa and Kindle obviously sound so similar?
They might discontinue the Fire if Google liberates stock Android from the Playstore or have more open Playstore rules? There was an Amazon phone and the Fire is basically an Android tablet at cost. Any profit in fire is via Amazon store and most of that would be audio & ebooks? So if Google allows in App purchases on Android without artificially taking a cut, the Fire is threatened

[MGlitch]

Yes let’s lump a bunch of tangentially connected groups and products together and pretend they are actually all the same (even though Amazon clearly distinguishes them from each other) and then draw conclusions on how that collective is doing.

Surely this will render great and reliable results to established a predictable pattern of behavior for the future of Amazon.

And who could forget that he heard somewhere some time ago that Amazon only had plans ( at the time) for another decade of the Kindle. It’s clearly impossible that this was actually meant as Amazon only had a 10 year roadmap for the Kindle at the time because eink is not a radically developing technology.

Oh gosh I wonder why Amazon is pouring money into LOTR as a series? Maybe because they want to have some of the rights to merch etc. same with Wheel of Time, because of the success HBO has had doing the same with Game of Thrones.

If Amazon gave poop about Amazon Video the discoverability of shows would be WAY better than it is. It’s just another feather to stick in Primes hat to lure people to subscribe.

I’d almost hope that ereading does die out if only because if it does he’s going to be out of a job. Which means less digital garbage clogging up YouTube and google search results.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by MGlitch

I’d almost hope that ereading does die out if only because if it does he’s going to be out of a job. Which means less digital garbage clogging up YouTube and google search results.

Careful now. Easy to ignore silly sources and even Kindles have value.
And the NFT scam is the Next Fabulous Thing.
YouTube exists to sell adverts. Google/Alphabet don't care about content as long as clicked and thus K-Ching!