Lots of people have began switching from Kindles to Kobos this previous yr due to Amazon making adjustments to the Kindle platform and locking down Kindle ebooks greater than ever, however has the Kobo platform began to succeed in the enshittification stage as nicely?
I can’t assist however discover quite a few issues altering for the more serious with Kobo over the previous couple of years. It’s attending to the purpose the place there are extra detrimental adjustments than optimistic adjustments. It’s not on the identical stage as Amazon, however there are quite a lot of little issues which are steadily getting worse with Kobo too.
It looks like Kobo has been resting on their laurels for years now. There was a time once they had been frequently increasing their retailer into extra international locations and taking up different failed e-book shops, however that hasn’t occurred in a very long time. And their e-book catalog is severely missing in some areas, particularly on the subject of shade content material for his or her shade ereaders, and it doesn’t appear to be getting higher.
Moreover, they’ve probably the most uncreative gross sales technique ever. On the subject of offers on Kobo ereaders, they only hold doing the identical $20 off gross sales a number of occasions a yr. They by no means do “large” gross sales. Even their Black Friday gross sales are simply the identical outdated $20 off offers that they all the time do. They by no means do trade-in offers or particular improve promotions for long-time clients. They used to supply quite a lot of coupon codes for reductions on ebooks, however now the codes are a lot much less frequent and fewer efficient and so they normally solely apply to a sure checklist of books.
Proof of a Decline
Kobo ereaders now not help utilizing a number of libraries via OverDrive. They eliminated the OverDrive login choice awhile again so it’s now not doable to make use of a number of library playing cards.
Kobo has raised the costs of their ereaders put up launch twice previously two years now. Individuals can level the finger at tariffs for this, however the truth is Amazon hasn’t raised the value of Kindles and Barnes and Noble hasn’t raised the value of Nooks throughout the identical timeframe.
Kobo refuses to launch new BW fashions, regardless of numerous requests for a Libra BW from clients. Proper now Kobo solely sells one present BW mannequin. The Elipsa 2E had an outdated display when it was launched two years in the past, and the Kobo Sage is 4 years outdated now and so they stopped promoting it within the US months in the past.
Kobo’s value match assure is now not assured on sure books.
Kobo’s software program updates have gone downhill over the previous two years, with fewer new options getting added and extra bugs getting launched. They’ve solely launched one principal replace over the previous yr, once they used to launch updates each few months, and the newest software program replace notoriously bricked quite a few gadgets. To Kobo’s credit score, I’ve seen a number of stories of individuals getting despatched new Kobos due to that, but it surely doesn’t appear like they’ve truly mounted the issue with the software program replace but.
They added some new accessibility options, together with a display reader, but it surely seems they’re very troublesome to make use of and require completely different software program with much less options than the usual software program, and the accessibility software program is just obtainable in Europe for some motive.
Kobo’s US distribution has worsened since their Walmart partnership ended. Now they solely have one US accomplice, BlueProton, who frequently expenses above MSRP for Kobo’s gadgets within the US. And so they aren’t obtainable in any retail shops to check earlier than shopping for. Kobo launched their very own Amazon retailer earlier this yr, however they inexplicably don’t promote their ereaders from there, solely covers.
Kobo now not permits refunds on downloaded ebooks. On one hand this appears logical, however the issue is Kobo ereaders and apps routinely obtain ebooks after you buy them, and as soon as that occurs you’ll be able to now not get a refund.
No more money again on bought ebooks and audiobooks. This appears to be one other current change for the more serious.
