Going Backwards

The current book I am reading, Why Nation's Fail, talks about a some key differences between nations and why some prosper and others do not.  They note key factors that are integral to a nation being, or not being, prosperous.  One of the key principles is what the book refers to as creative destruction (e.g. innovation).  This is usually related to a change in process or a new or advanced technology, and how that change may be accepted. My wife has become the victim of sort of creative destruction.  Her beloved Kindle died, and features on her ten year old Kindle are no longer available on the versions available today.  I call that going backwards.

My Wife's Beloved Kindle Keyboard

Sometimes you get used to an electronic device, and get used to the features the device contains.  My wife's beloved Kindle Keyboard, which is probably about 10 years old, died this past weekend. Her screen, after it died, looks like the picture on the old cathode ray tube televisions of old when the picture started to fail or the signal was bad. It simply no longer works.  She recharged it, tried to shut down and restart, but nothing would "unfreeze" the device.  One minute it worked, the next it did not. What is interesting is that the features she enjoys on that device are no longer available today.  Amazon has gone backwards, all in the ability to make even more money.  

The wife's beloved Kindle Keyboard did things that are currently not available on a Kindle, without some other type of intervention.  Three major aspects that her beloved Kindle Keyboard would do stand out.  First, she could access the internet (3G, but remember this is ten years old) without using a data plan or our internet. In fact, she could search for more than the book or information for something in the book, she could actually access the internet.  It was not fast, but it worked in a pinch, and better than no internet at those times. Second, it needed light to read, it was not back or front lite with LED lights that are usually in the blue spectrum and can keep one up at night. Finally, more importantly to her, the beloved Kindle possessed what is called text to speech.  One minute she could be reading, and she could then switch it to this mode where it will read the pages to her. The male voice was mechanical and it did not always have the best pronunciations, but overall it worked quite well.  She really enjoyed that feature, as she could put her book down and sew, do crafts, and organize and reorganize, or whatever she does to occupy her time, with the book being read to her.  She did not have to have a speaker, or headphones. The speaker was built in to the device. 

My Kindle Paperwhite

The day the beloved Kindle Keyboard died we spent a good part of it trying to find a Kindle that would do the same thing. Not to be. The Kindle Paperwhite, version 4 would do text to speech.  I have a 2015 Paperwhite, and it must not be a v 4 since it does not do the text to speech.  Either it was before v4 or perhaps after v4 when Jeff Bezos decided he could make more money by no longer offering text to speech as a Kindle option. In addition, unlike her  beloved Kindle Keyboard, mine does not give me an outside internet connection. I have to connect it to our home internet, or find an available internet. The internet access will only help give some information, like an explanatory phrase for a word or phrase, for example if I highlight the words "Abraham Lincoln," I get an article or description of President Lincoln. My paperwhite will not allow me to simply browse the internet.  They have gone backwards in design elements. 

The text to speech is apparently available on the Kindle Fire, which is a tablet, not unlike an IPad, but she has an IPad, and an IPhone, so why get a device that would be too heavy for her to carry around?  Whether by habit or design features, she really enjoyed her now dead and at one time beloved Kindle Keyboard. It was sufficiently lightweight to easily carry around, and it had text to speech so she could listen while walking. With the newer Kindle Paperwhite, you cannot get text to speech, but you can buy a version that will allow you to listen to an audio book, you separately download, but need bluetooth headphones, or bluetooth speaker.  Just another thing to carry around and/or connect to. The problem is you can't read the page and switch to listening to the same book at an easy toggle like she had.  She can listen to an audiobook on her Iphone or Ipad, downloaded from the local library.  There is no easy way for her to have a Kindle that will do what she was used to doing with text to speech.  She figures she will now download an audio book to her Ipad or Iphone to listen to while doing her own creative tasks.  

There may be some applications for certain devices that allow text to speech,  but I am not sure.  The wife says you can pay a subscription to Audible, but we get our audible books from the library, so why get a subscription and pay Jeff Bezos? You buy the subscription, because it is part of the Bezos non-creative destruction for Amazon to make even more money, so it can pay low wages to its employees.  I think Bezos is well aware of the method of creative destruction, because he said someday Amazon will be gone, or a vestige of its current self. In other words, it will be replaced by something better (perhaps a company that does not go backwards). Just like Sony Betamax, or VHS, or, getting even older, 8-track tapes (I never understood why you would use an 8-track tape over a cassette tape) are from a now distant era. Kindle, or Amazon, is really going backwards technologically on their devices in order to require people to buy a service, or obtain more equipment to do what one simple device used to do.  

Her Beloved Kindle compared to Mine

In the end this leaves my wife in a dilemma, which was very disconcerting to her.  She could not find a nice lightweight device to both be able to read and then switch to text to speech. It is part of the creative destruction principle. However, that principle is supposed to improve economic output and the national economy. I am not sure what Amazon is doing with the Kindle, but I am not sure its creative destruction is helping anyone but Jeff Bezos. OK, it might help the communist government of China to fund their prosecution of the Uighur Muslims, Christians and others, but I doubt anyone in the U.S. benefits from the feature change. What Amazon had done with the Kindle is the antithesis of what the writers of Why Nations Fail, meant by how creative destruction helps an economy.  Going backwards in their product design, has left my wife's beloved Kindle to be recycled, and her now having to have one device to listen to a book and another to read a book. She multi-tasks well, and this will now only be improved. But, I doubt that is what Bezos had in mind. It is still going backwards.