Amazon Should Offer a Free Way to Remove Ads From "Kindle With Special Offers" By Joe Crescenzi, Founder Staten Island, NY Posted: 11/30/2014 1:00:00 AM It was a mistake buying my Kindle PaperWhite at a slightly lower price, allowing Amazon to place advertising on the device.Amazon sells two versions of each Kindle model. One version costs $20 less, because it has "Special Offers", which are advertisements in places that Amazon claims won't get in the way of reading your books.The second version costs a few dollar more, but it has no such advertising. They call it a discount for allowing the ads. I call it an extra fee to get rid of them.I'm a big fan of coupons, so when Amazon announced they would put Special Offers on the Kindle, I assumed that meant "insider coupons", special deals that only the savvy people who opted-in would get. Why wouldn't I want that? Any time somebody is going to give me a special discount, you know I'm first in line. That's not what you get. These are just pointless ads. A shallow, distracting money grab.What bugs me is that they don't heavily promote the model without the ads, and it's hard to find in retail stores, so they not only are charging extra to remove the ads, but they make it harder to find, which further proves that this is the entry level price, and the models without ads are a surcharge, not a discount.One of the interesting things about a Kindle is that it doesn't use a traditional LCD screen. It uses something called Electronic Ink, which means it only uses power to re-draw the screen. This means it can show a picture on the screen, even when the power is off. This sheds light on Amazon's motive for selling advertising, because whenever the Kindle is turned off, the screen shows an ad, so they are even getting paid for ads when your device is turned off. Smart move Amazon.I hated the ads. They not only used the whole page when it was turned off, but 50% of the first screen you saw when you turned it on. 50%.Once you went past that screen, they still took up too much space on the bottom and I would accidentally touch the ads from time to time, taking me to a page I didn't want in the Amazon store. I was fed up with the ads, but I had to search all over to try to pay the $20 fee to remove the ads. There isn't even an option to do it from the Kindle itself, you have to go to your account page on the Amazon site. I eventually found it and paid the fee to turn the ads off. Good riddance. Now, when I turn it on, the first thing I see is MY books taking 100% of the screen, instead of 50%.I can't explain why, but somehow I felt like I finally owned my own Kindle. I can't explain why, but I never felt like it was mine with those ads facing me every day.I couldn't wait to turn it off to finally see the obnoxious full page ad removed. Yes. It was gone. But what I discovered was that Amazon is wasting that space with a random rotation of nonsensical images. Right now, it's showing a fountain pen and ink well. Before that it was block letters. What a waste.Instead of a random picture, why not either let us choose a picture... or even better, give us an option to put the cover of the book we are currently reading there, along with the battery level. Right now, you have to turn it on to see the battery level, when they could easily put it in the corner.Hey Amazon. If you want people to have an option to remove the ads, make it free. I'm sure some people will still opt-in for the ads, but we shouldn't have to pay to do it. Joe Crescenzi, Founder Related Media: (Reply N/A) (Edit Topic N/A) (Like Topic N/A) [0 ] 9160 Views
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