Several months back, Comixology’s affiliate linking partner began emailing participants (including yours truly!), that the Comixology affiliate program would shut down in the coming months, as the website migrated in full to Amazon. While a mild inconvenience for a strapping young webmaster like myself, this was hardly shocking, as Amazon purchased Comixology back in 2014, and it’s honestly surprising Comixology operated as its own entity as long as it did.
This rollout was delayed (spoiler: all rollouts are delayed), but came to fruition this past week. In and of itself, this would have generated the predictable levels of dissatisfaction that happens with any technology changing, but Comixology managed to actually shock by combining the migration with a full-on upheaval of their entire product. What I took to be a minor shift was instead accompanied by a full app overhaul, a desktop reader overhaul, Comixology Unlimited changes, and virtually every feature changed – predominantly for the worse – in one form or another.
In short, it’s the single most universally reviled technology shift I’ve ever seen in digital comics, and one of the most confusing instances of a self-inflicted wound since Plaxico Burress.
So, here we are, to explore what did Comixology do, what does it mean for comics fans, and is it as bad as everyone’s saying on social media? [Read more…] about What Hath Thou Wrought, Comixology?