Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Amazon has an enormous selection, good pricing, and generally good customer service, so Kindle users don't normally see vendor lock-in as an imposition, but vendor lock-in is the point of their exercise.
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Agreed. I doubt Amazon has an innate desire to get rid of DRM merely because it's best for us. They made that play in music to compete with iTunes but I expect no altruism or even internal continuity from any corporation. Amazon has a business philosophy of being very customer-centric but a business plan is not a personal ethic in the way that you or I might apply one. They are still primarily dedicated to their fiduciary responsibility of providing maximum profit to their shareholders. Corporations, despite having legal person-hood, are obviously not people. Sony didn't move to ePub and promoting Overdrive compatibility until they were being outdone by Amazon and desperately needed a differentiator. It was a smart business move on their part given the state of the market.
Amazon does allow publishers to sell DRM-free books in their store. So far, no major publisher has decided to go that route. The market is nowhere near large enough for any retailer to try to push the issue, either. It's my not-particularly-educated-but-nonetheless-audacious guess that publishers are entering the ebook world kicking and screaming at this point and actively trying to slow things down while they retool. I do think we'll see an open market eventually but it will be awhile. In the meantime, Amazon will do its best to get ebook buyers in the habit of buying from them. They will cover every major OS and try to provide the most competitive stand-alone device (while such devices are still relevant) to get us looking to them first for a book.
tl;dr: Capitalism