Sue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱1d ago

Dystopia Status Level: ADS IN BOOKS 😡

My dear readers, you can leave Amazon, I promise. Even reducing Amazon usage helps, but *especially* for books. There are alternatives.

Here's how to find them:
https://susankayequinn.com/how-to-buy-sues-books-a-guide-to-retailers

Show threadJacobCoffin
@susankayequinn Centralized ebook platforms can force unwanted revisions into books you've 'bought' with an ease that'd make heads spin at the ministry of truth. No recalls necessary, just quietly push edits. Before I stopped using amazon I saw books I'd owned for years suddenly displaying new covers - and changes to the text would have been just as easy to implement and a lot harder to catch.
Mar 22 at 6:48amWeb
Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱23h ago
@jacobcoffin as an author who's updated covers and corrected typos, I don't see a problem with this. I always found, as a reader, that I had to opt into those updates (they weren't automatic). Maybe that's changed or it's a setting that you automatically accept all updates. The only time an update was FORCED was also at my request (and it was hard to get Amazon to do it)—but I had uploaded THE WRONG BOOK for a preorder and basically everyone got the wrong book. They pushed through the right one.
Show threadJacobCoffin23h ago

@susankayequinn wait how do you think this happened?

If you don't think amazon will use their LLMs to add advertisements or adjust the politics in books under their control to match whatever libertarian or fascist leanings their leadership favors, then it doesn't seem dystopian. In that case the only place ads could come from is the writers themselves, and that's been done before.

To me, the threat is that corporates love this tech and it makes this kind of injection or revision easy for them

Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱23h ago

@jacobcoffin how do I think what happened? That I uploaded the wrong book? I was stressed and made a mistake?

I'm literally telling readers to move off Amazon in the OP... I'm not sure why you suddenly think I don't think Amazon will use LLMs... like that's literally what the post and *all my posts* are about, anti-AI, anti-corp...??

Show threadJacobCoffin23h ago

@susankayequinn I was asking about the advertisement. And I'm saying this is enabled by their centralized control over ebooks and their ability to push edits - which you said you don't have a problem with.

They can use this tech stack to promote fascism and other billionaire whims. LLMs just make it easy for them to do en mass. If you buy a book from them you don't own it, you don't even have any guarantee it'll be the same the next time you open it.

Show threadJacobCoffin22h ago
@susankayequinn if authors can push updates into already-purchased ebooks, so can amazon executives. Any guardrails meant to prevent that are just corporate policy, and thus can be changed or ignored on a whim.
Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱22h ago
@jacobcoffin I understand that — and I'm not stupid, but thanks