Quote:
Originally Posted by kindlekitten
vendor lock-in? as in the myth that you can only put Amazon books on the Kindle?
note: MYTH!
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You're right, it's more than possible to put books from other sources than Amazon on the Kindle. Amazon does make it easier to put books from the Kindle store on the device than books from other sources, but Kindle readers aren't limited to Amazon books if they don't want to be.
However, let's say you want to buy The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in e-format.
If you own a Kindle, the only place you can buy a copy that's readable on your device is the Amazon Kindle store.
If you own a Nook, you can get it from B&N, Sony, BooksOnBoard and a number of other sites.
If you own a Sony Reader, you can get it from Sony or BooksOnBoard, and a number of other sites.
Both the Nook and Sony allow the user to read recent bestsellers from paranoid publishers purchased from stores other than their own. The Kindle does not.
It's not an absolute lock-in - but Kindle users do have more restrictions on the number of places they can buy recent bestsellers to read on their device than people who own other devices do.
Is it enough of an issue to make the Kindle a bad choice? No! But the restrictions are real, and thus there is a grain of truth to the "Vendor lock-in" myth because people who desire a certain kind of book and own Kindles are locked in to the Kindle store - while those who own other readers are not locked in to their reader vendor's store - and can buy those books from alternate sources if desired.