[MrsJoseph]

Amazon is doing very, very well with the kindle. I can understand why they don't want to loosen up their golden handcuffs for their customers. It is making them a lot of money right now.

There is a problem embedded in this structure that will show itself eventually: People like choices and they hate restrictions.

I used to work for a membership association - several years ago we had to do company case studies because of a business model similar to Amazon. A sister association had (for years) found a way to gain and keep membership at all times: offering access to and discounts for an industry specific insurance that was only available to its members. The insurance was great and all of the associations' members wanted/needed the insurance. If a member wanted to keep their insurance they had to keep their membership. These "golden handcuffs" were the main driver of the association's membership stability.

For several years this model worked extremely well. Other membership associations tried to emulate them: each looking for its own pair of golden handcuffs.

Then members started getting tired of it. They wanted choices and competition, not restrictions. They wanted to get or keep access to their insurance without being required to be a member of the association. Eventually several members took the association to court and it was decided that associations could no longer restrict such important offerings to members only. This ruling hit our association community like a tidal wave and sent several in our field scrambling.

Unlike the association I mentioned above, Amazon - currently - is in great position. Most people love the site, love the prices, and love the products. So why would they tell me I cannot buy ebooks from them to use on my own purchased device? I do not own a Kindle. I do not want to own a Kindle. I want to buy books from Amazon. I have an Amazon Prime account, I shop there so much. But now my money isn't good enough for them because I haven't bought into their golden handcuffs?

And I don't want to hear any of that "go buy a kindle" crap. I want to use my local library and Kindle doesn't support that.

I guess, eventually, Amazon will start to sell epub or non-DRM'ed books (cause that is the real problem, the DRM). I hope it happens while I still want to do business with Amazon, cause I don’t like begging people to take my money.