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Outrage as Amazon modifies Comixology to remove in App purchase (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Sam Posten
- Start date
I think "spite" is inaccurate (and link-baity)I'm not a comic reader nor a comixology customer. I was dismissive of the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the issue. I mean, Audible (also Amazon owned) lacks in-app purchasing, and it's no big deal. I still subscribe and get my monthly audiobook. But, I realized that's not the best comparison. Because subscriptions are an auto-pilot system. It's not a problem to browse my wish list and select my next book in Safari, vs the audible app.The better comparison is the Kindle app. It is a nuisance to leave the app to buy a book. Especially if I know what I want and want to buy quickly. ---The argument of depriving users of impulse purchasing doesn't when points in my view. The argument that comics needs people to make hasty, ill-considered decisions, seems just as sleazy as any case against Amazon. (The opposite argument is made against sleazy candy crush games: people need to be better aware of the money they're burning impulsively.)As I indicated, I'm very open to arguments against harming usability, of decreasing interface friction. But I concede, even regarding "impulse" buying, that people will impulse spend their money. And many enjoy impulse spending a few bucks on their interests. Creating roadblocks is squeezing the balloon: those impulse purchase dollars will go somewhere else, to the comic publishers' detriment. ----So what of it? To first order, Apple doesn't care. They sell hardware, not software. Comic book commission is nothing to them.But long-term, it's potentially a problem. People buy Apple hardware because it's easiest. If we collectively realize that Amazon hardware is easiest, because that's how we get our movies and comic books, Apple is sunk.
TravisR
Senior HTF Member
I still buy real comic books in a real comic book store so I'm not particularly concerned either way but I'm not seeing that this is THAT big of a deal. I can't believe that things like word of mouth, a specific writer or artist or a particular character or team aren't way more important to sales than impulse buying.
RobertR
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A company acts to further its own interests at the expense of another? How shocking! 
Again keep in mind that Comixology is -beloved- by it's users in part because of it's built in store which has been there since v1. I got it on day 1 and knew it was a game changer.Comixology is also rare for its support of B&M stores via pull lists.Is Amazon killing the golden goose tho? It hasn't stopped me on Kindle but I wonder, and the linked article believes, it's different here.
Dave, you are absolutely right here. I will try to have a Mod change it to "to keep the 30% cut that was going to Apple" or jjust remove that half altogether.DaveF said:
I wasn't trying to be over the top for scare points here, I am genuinely sad to see Comixology sell out like this and the users pay the price for it. I am personally affected by it, I don't have a huge comixology account but I probably have 25+ collected over the years, mostly from Free Comic Book days annually.
Marco has a good point on it here:
http://www.marco.org/2014/04/28/gerry-conway-comixology
Thanks mods for fixing title!
TravisR
Senior HTF Member
Is my understanding correct that you now have to click a couple more buttons to get comics than before? It's dumb to add more steps and it's dumb to fix something that isn't broken but the level of anger that I've seen (at other places, not here) isn't really in line with the offense.
No, you have to navigate outside the Comixology app entirely to a different machine or use the safari browser to buy things, the 'store' within the app is wholesale gone. Same as on the Kindle App. This removes a whole lot of the charm of the Comixology App, that you could immediately see things related to what you were currently reading and buy them with ease. Browsers obviously do not support the elegant feel of a native app.
I enjoy Marco Arment's blog and podcast. But he has that stridency of a naive young man (I miss those days 
)Quote:Either ComiXology was so naive and negligent that they didn’t think Amazon would do what it always does, or they cared more about the money than the future of their industry (and their customers) and simply sold out.Or, they reasonably believed Amazon, the dominant bookseller, would promote them and give them the greatest access to customers. Is their a parallel for the whisper sync of ebooks and audiobooks for comics? Maybe Comixology was pitched X-ray for comics.It's not all roses. But Amazon is out to sell more comics, not less.
)Quote:Either ComiXology was so naive and negligent that they didn’t think Amazon would do what it always does, or they cared more about the money than the future of their industry (and their customers) and simply sold out.Or, they reasonably believed Amazon, the dominant bookseller, would promote them and give them the greatest access to customers. Is their a parallel for the whisper sync of ebooks and audiobooks for comics? Maybe Comixology was pitched X-ray for comics.It's not all roses. But Amazon is out to sell more comics, not less.
There's no call for drive-by insults.
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Joseph Bolus
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As a Comixology customer I can tell you that this is not that big of a deal.I read most of my purchases on my iPad. When Comixology "upgraded" their app to a "read-only" status, I simply created a "Comixology" folder and placed the new app in there along with a desktop shortcut to the Comixology store. Problem solved ... and Comixology provided me with a $5.00 credit for my trouble. BTW, when you finish reading a book in a series, the Comixology app will present you with recommendations --- including the next book in the series -- which you can then add to your "Wish List". When you go to the store you can then purchase from your "Wish List". As I said: No big deal.
Thanks for your perspective Joseph. If you are correct this shouldn't be too big a deal for end users and as I said my Kindle experience seems along the same routes.
But do you suppose the same is true for the authors and publishes perspective as presented in the OP? Do you really believe the same volume will continue without in app purchases?
But do you suppose the same is true for the authors and publishes perspective as presented in the OP? Do you really believe the same volume will continue without in app purchases?
Chuck Anstey
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I find this all fascinating simply because of who thinks whom should be paid for delivering any given service. In the context here, Apple is no different than somehow expecting "the internet" should be paid 30% of all transactions that occur on it. Should you pay your ISP a 30% tax on all items you buy on the internet since without your ISP you couldn't buy it? Should you then also have to pay Apple another 30% on top of that as they provided the device that you used to buy the item? Instead the internet is a publish / subscribe system where the sellers pay to publish their catalog or ads and the buyer pays to receive the catalog or ads. That is the end of the value that the internet provides as it is just a tool. So if Apple wants a piece of Comixology or any other app that simplifies buying items from a store front, they should charge the store operator for every person who installs the app, i.e. an advertising fee as that is all Apple or any other SmartPhone OS is providing here. Of course then what would happen is places like Amazon would charge $10 for the app but give a $5 or $10 discount on your first purchase, just like real retail outlets did when they had catalogs.
Imagine going into your local hardware store to buy a hammer. You ask "How much for the hammer?". Clerk: "What are you going to use it for?" You: "Hanging a few pictures." Clerk: "For you, $5". The next person in line says "Framing a house as that is my job." Clerk: "Okay, you frame about 6 houses before it breaks, getting an average of $5000 per house and the hammer provides $500 of that value so $3000". In the digital age, tool providers expect to be paid based upon the user's use of the tool rather than the user profiting from their innovative use of the tools around. Adobe is trying to do it with Photoshop. Microsoft is trying to do it with Microsoft tools and other tool suites.
I think all this hand wringing and screams about sellouts and screwing customers is nothing more than real complaints about the backwardness of the fee model by people who don't understand that it is backwards.
Imagine going into your local hardware store to buy a hammer. You ask "How much for the hammer?". Clerk: "What are you going to use it for?" You: "Hanging a few pictures." Clerk: "For you, $5". The next person in line says "Framing a house as that is my job." Clerk: "Okay, you frame about 6 houses before it breaks, getting an average of $5000 per house and the hammer provides $500 of that value so $3000". In the digital age, tool providers expect to be paid based upon the user's use of the tool rather than the user profiting from their innovative use of the tools around. Adobe is trying to do it with Photoshop. Microsoft is trying to do it with Microsoft tools and other tool suites.
I think all this hand wringing and screams about sellouts and screwing customers is nothing more than real complaints about the backwardness of the fee model by people who don't understand that it is backwards.
Joseph Bolus
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I think if Comixology could expand the "Wish List" concept such that tapping on the "More Books" TAB would allow you to browse the store as before and then place comics you may wish to purchase in your "Wish List" there would be practically no repercussions from this modification at all. In fact, it seems so logical that you have to wonder why the ability to do that has not been included from day one.Sam Posten said:
I have to admit that browsing the store via the link to the Comixology site is not as much fun as it was when the store was fully integrated within the app. The Comixology web site *is* still very functional, though.
You might have read it and disagreed. But if not, the first essay Sam linked has a good answer:Chuck Anstey said:
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I was going to try the service at one time, until I saw that the price for a cloud-based digital copy was no cheaper than buying a hard copy. It's ridiculous. There is no printing costs. There are little to no distribution costs and they still manage to charge 4.00 bucks a book? Also, what happens to all of that expensive content if the service ever goes under? I'm not interested in spending hundreds of dollars on content, just to see access to it lost if the service collapses. The loss of an in-app storefront seems like the least of the weaknesses in this business model.
TravisR
Senior HTF Member
I'm with you but I've got a buddy who just waits a month or two and a lot of what he wants goes on sale for $2 as the companies try to squeeze a few more dollars out of their 'old' product.Edwin-S said:
That's exactly my strategy on video games, especially on Steam. I buy 1-2 new releases per year but the vast majority of my buys are under $5.
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