[BillSmithBooks]

I agree howyoudoin: There are many more devices and stores that use Epub...but I bet there are more sales of .mobi books, although PDF is still a popular format, too.

Anyone who thinks that Amazon won't eliminate Agency Pricing and reduce royalty rates as soon as they feel they have control of the ebook industry is incredibly naive. Amazon has shown this form of predatory behavior before against print publishers in the UK.

Eliminating DRM so readers can buy from any store without any hassles could be a potent tool for publishers to retain some measure of control over their fates. The conflicting DRM-schemes and fragmented ePub non-standard (aka KoboPub and ApplePub) are doing nothing to help the Epub side of the argument.

If non-DRMed music works (and it does)*, it will work for ebooks.

DRM is just one more hassle that people don't want to deal with and therefore many people (like me) still just buy paper books through Amazon (when I can't get it on Smashwords or Baen) since buying a paper book is just as easy as buy an ebook...and if you buy used, cheaper.

* What changed in music is not that people buy less music--the total volume of music sales is higher than ever before--but people finally had a choice to buy just the single they wanted for 99 cents instead of being forced to shell out $15 for an entire CD to get the one or two songs they really wanted.