Not really worth the effort now

Amazon bought Comixology in April 2014. Now they don’t have to pay Apple’s 30% surcharge for each purchase we make, but what have we lost?

There is no in-app store, no in-app browsing, no buy buttons. Not even a link to their website (per Apple’s rules). The Comixology app is now just a reader. For a new user just installing the app, it opens up to a blank screen saying in effect, “Hey, go get some comics! Somehow…”

You can only buy comics from their website, if you can discover the URL on your own. You must use a credit card or PayPal. In dollars. My iTunes account runs on iTunes gift cards (in yen) from the convenience store, so that’s not going to happen.

I have just shy of 700 comics in the old version, probably 500 of which were spontaneous snap purchases while in the flow of reading, clicking the “Want to buy and read the next issue right now?” button that was shown after finishing the final page of the current issue. Can’t do that anymore. Now it just adds it to your cart — it’s up to you to purchase it on the web — and the flow of reading is broken.

I wouldn’t say I’m outraged, but I’m now wary, and this new system does drop Comixology below my threshold of inconvenience. I doubt I’ll be buying much of anything from them until things change in some fundamental, unlikely way. The DC and Marvel apps (both made by Comixology) still have their in-app storefronts, but it was the independent comics that were most interesting to me. Also, now that they’ve shown their willingness to mess things up in their flagship app, how long will it be until the satellite apps are also neutered? It’s made me reluctant to trust them with further purchases.

I have no need for paper comics, nor are there any local English-comic stores, so I can’t even use that as a fallback position. I’ll just buy no comics. Raw convenience was also the reason Comixology was making a dent into piracy, so it’s odd to see them deliberately reduce that advantage. Now it’s like a public-service warning about the dangers of purchasing DRM’ed media.

I can only speculate that Amazon bought Comixology specifically to kill it (as they did with the ebook reader app Stanza), so that reading comics on the Kindle becomes the “best” comics reading experience by default. I don’t think the good-intentioned people on Comixology’s side realized just how drastically Amazon was willing to weaken the immediate user experience to serve Amazon’s longer-range goals. Now we all know.

プレス about Comixology - Comics & Manga, v3.6.2