I bought a Kobo e-reader, and I’m desperately trying to not make it a terrible investment but god it’s basically a paperweight. Especially for someone who primarily reads manga.

Picking a random manga volume it’s $19 physical, $13 on Kobo, $8 on Amazon, and $5 on mobile. I honestly can’t imagine anyone being able to justify paying $13 for an e-book that will still disappear if the Kobo store goes defunct (or more likely “when” given the state of the storefront). They don’t even have the phyiscal printing cost to justify those prices, it’s all data.

Then there’s the selection. Goes without saying that that’s awful. On Kindle I could even buy out of print books in Japanese if I wanted.

Then there’s Kobo Plus. You pay $20 a month to read a small slection of the library for free. Even if you find something interesting often only the first half is free and the rest is $13 a volume. Sometimes it’s a light novel labeled as manga by the company because of course it is.

The store is a place where if you’re lucky, you can overpay to read a book you can get elsewhere easier. I can’t imagine anyone, in any universe, being able to justify the prices. Maybe if I get Kobo plus and buy the rest of the series when I read them, but even that’s a tough sell.

At this rate, I might have to try and fleece it off to a friend and buy a kindle, but the price really hurts for something I can’t justify using over buying physical.

  • BingBong@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    2 days ago

    I really wanted to purchase from there because its the only place I have found to buy some of the manga I want to read (e.g. so I’m a spider now so what?!) And I have no other way to support the author. I was never able to get DRM removal working though so simply don’t buy instead.

  • Tynan@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    I don’t, no. I have a pile of thrifted Kobos and Kindles and they’re all running Koreader and synced up and I don’t interact with either brand’s stock UI.

  • freshfusion@discuss.tchncs.de
    4·
    4 days ago

    Nope, installed koreader on it for extra features, like reading RSS news, playing chess and more. Never created an account, just get books from project Gutenberg or Anna’s archive.

  • redlemace@lemmy.world
    4·
    4 days ago

    No, not really. Downloaded some free books once, bought one too. I can get e-books from the library, there are many free projects and I use it to read stuff for learning purposes. So not using the store, but happy with the e-reader itself.

    Also downloaded and installed koreader. It’s great because you can keep using both, koreader and stock firmware. Although I admit that stock is just fine for most of my usage, but I love that kind of projects

  • WhiteRaven22@midwest.socialEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Yeah, I can’t really help you in the Manga department, but my Clara BW is basically just stuffed full of free classics from the likes of Standard Ebooks and The Gutenberg Project.

    I used the Kobo store once, and that one paid ebook is the only one with weird cover issues in the overview screen and has arguably worse formatting than most of Standard Ebooks’ offerings. If I’m really interested in a book that’s too new to be in the public domain nowadays, I usually just buy a hard copy instead.

  • methanemoose@lemmus.orgEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    To answer the 1st question in the post. I mostly use it when I’m feeling extra lazy. I think I bought 2 books and tried out the kobo Plus for a couple of months. Just to see what’s up. Overall, I’m happy with the ereader. I originally bought this because it wasn’t Amazon, so I’m fine with the few buck I’ve thrown their way.

    I did get the complete disc world series from humble bundle, which was nice.

    I as for the manga. Sorry, but I think you will do better side loading or library apps. Others have answered

  • JoyfulCodingGuy@lemmy.ml
    1·
    4 days ago

    I don’t personally read manga but can’t you source your books from anywhere and just drag and drop then onto the device? That’s what I do for normal comics and ebooks with CBR files for comics and EPUB files for other books.

    I have bought a book or two on the Kobo store because I wanted access to the book the day it came out vs. waiting to source it via “other means” and I was able to just drag and drop off the Kobo that book to my computer and other devices for reading elsewhere. Granted this all depends on what encryption if any the store is using.

    But also it goes without saying that any alternative store would / could have their own encryption and thus make your purchase disappear if it goes defunct as you state.