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Kobo or Apple for e-books? What’s better for keeping profits local? (self.buycanadian)

submitted 5 months ago by Sunshine to c/buycanadian

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I want to buy open source drm free e-books however I see Kobo that is a Canadian subsidiary owned by a Japanese Company while Apple is American with some operations based in Canada, California is closer to British Columbia however they often use closed standards.

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[–] otter 8 points 5 months ago

I've heard good things about Kobo, such as being compatible with self-hosted options.

Haven't used either personally

[–] anguo 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'm confused, are you talking about buying the e-reader, or the books?

For books, you can try looking for much more local options: in Quebec you have a leslibraires.ca for example, which is a consortium of small libraries. Their books do have some form of DRM though, I believe.

[–] psvrh 8 points 5 months ago

Kobo supports OverDrive, which is a system that some (not all, but some) libraries use to manage ebook loans.

[–] Sunshine 2 points 5 months ago

Thanks! I will be checking that out!

Another awesome thing Quebec has!

[–] Nils 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

profits local

Depends on the profits you mean, I don't think there is a single hardware built here, overall:

Buy hardware used or refurbished from local sellers.
Software that supports your local library borrowing system (Something like OverDrive).

open source drm free e-books

Most hardware supports them out of the box. For the ones that do not, there are some workaround (koreader).

On the profit part, there are some publishers in Canada and you can always connect to your local library.

kobo or apple

That is like comparing apples to oranges. I don't think apple offers eBook readers.

You need to think if you like/need a few things.

Would you like e-ink display? Would you like colour? Is it just to read and annotations? Or you want to run apps available on your phone as well?

Once I started using e-ink for reading books I cannot use LCD or LED panels anymore for that task.

As e-ink eBook reader goes Kobo might be the best option in Canada, everything you need out of the box with the bonus of connecting to your local library.

I saw some online sellers offering Bigme and Boox in Canada, but I could not confirm if they have offices here.

I would stay away from Amazon unless you ok flashing used hardware (for safety) and with doing workarounds (to install koreader).

[+] hddsx -6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What kind of question is “Do you need an E-ink display?” The question is “Do you need a color E-Ink display?

What’s wrong with the kindle? I have a 2012 kindle paperwhite

[–] Nils 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

What kind of question is “Do you need an E-ink display?”

Currently, Apple does not offer any hardware form factor with an e-ink display. If the poster was interested in hardware, that would filter out Apple devices.

What’s wrong with the kindle? I have a 2012 kindle paperwhite

I also have a Kindle, PaperWhite 3.

The list is long, in short: Kindle has a closed system. Similar to the reMarkable brand of e-ink devices, they make it hard for you to do anything it was not made for, and to be heavily dependent on their services.

You can still run Doom and other programs on Kindle, but I would not recommend buying it new, nor to someone who does not want the hassle of tweaking it, as there are better options working well out of the box.

In the poster case, converting DRM-free e-books to Amazon's proprietary format is not always straightforward and can cause severe artifacts in your books. You either need time and patience to tweak the settings of your conversion tool, or install something like KOReader that can read them as-is.

[–] hddsx 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry that initial question was meant to convey that E-ink.

OP appears to either have no E-Ink display experience or that is not a hard requirement.

FWIW, you can use calibre to manage your E-Books. Yes, there are sometimes artificers but IIRC they support mobi too (I apologize if that’s the wrong format I actually haven’t used my kindle in about a year)

[–] Nils 1 points 5 months ago

I use Calibre to organize my e-books, it is great. Mobi was giving me the best result when I converted from epub, the other Amazon format my Kindle supports is azw3.

Sadly, I lost half of the last words per line converting from DRM-free books I got from humble bundle, and figuring out the proper settings was taking too long.

When I learned about KOReader I never looked back, it allows me to sync with Calibre through Wi-Fi and accepts way more book formats. I have been using Kindle more since I installed it.

The problem is that the process to get it running on Kindle is not that straightforward.

[–] Randomgal 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Walk into an independent bookstore near you and buy books. That's how you keep your money local.

[–] Sunshine 2 points 5 months ago

I like your thinking, also I should consider donating the books to friends, charities and mini libraries after I finish with them.

[–] psvrh 3 points 5 months ago

For keeping profits local? Neither of them.

And to be honest, profits don't matter. You should care about keeping costs local because profits just got to rich people, while the costs of a product are paid to the poor people who actually make said product. For example, if you're Canadian, this is why you should buy a Toyota RAV-4 (made in Ontario) instead of a Ford Escape (made in Hermosillo, Mexico) despite Dearborn being closer, because it's the costs that make the difference, not the profits.

As for eReaders, the question is: do you read comics? If you do, get an iPad. Otherwise, Kobos are fine.

[–] hddsx 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why Apple? Also if you’re going by distance, Amazon is closer

[–] Sunshine 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It’s just that I’m already in the Apple ecosystem

[–] hddsx 5 points 5 months ago

If your sole function is reading, don’t get an Apple device. If you want to be able to do other things too, MAYBE Apple starts to make sense.

[–] Sunshine 1 points 5 months ago

Victoria to Tokyo 7588km

Victoria to Cupertino 1241km