Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
Trivial for everyone. Find me this 'everyone else' who is having an issue.
'Avoiding' does not only mean stripping DRM or need to be a technical matter. See below:
We have the following groups of people:
1. People who can handle it themselves technically-- This is a bigger group than naysayers claim.
2. People who know someone who can do it for them technically-- This is perhaps the largest group.
3. People who can't do, can't have it done for them, or can but are opposed to doing so for their own reasons. Among these people:
3a The majority buy from the vendor integrated on their device, never need to read on any other device or shop anywhere else and will never be affected by the issue. Issue avoided.
3b. Some of those simply choose not to buy from DRM stores on principle. Not everyone cares about the so-called mainstream. They use their readers for the millions of DRM free public domain, indie, niche, specialty, direct from author, small house, and even a few mainstream options that provide DRM free content. Issue avoided.
3c. People who are stuck with books they can't read, or who are stuck without books they want because of format/drm restriction. These are the only people for whom this is an issue. I have NEVER ENCOUNTERED ONE OF THESE PEOPLE. WHO HAS? Polls here can't seem to identify anyone. I think this group, if it exists, is so close to a null set that no one needs to care. QED!
ApK
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OK, for the sake of argument, I give you: My Mother.
She loves her Sony PRS-350. But I hate the Sony store and have encouraged her not to use it because, you know what? I'm not going to get into why. We don't need that here.
She can't buy from Amazon and she can't buy from B&N because of the DRM/format incompatibility with Sony. So that leaves, of the "main" stores, Kobo. AFAIK, anyway.
And even Kobo is confusing for her, because it's not as simple as "hit a download button and save the epub to your reader drive, Mom". You've got to use ADE or try to coax the Sony Reader software to load everything up and ARGH. Calibre is easier, but the Kobo downloads are ACSM files, and Calibre doesn't open those, AFAIK.
This is an issue in our household except DING! she fits into Group 2 and her daughter can handle all this stuff behind the scenes. And I do it because she's my mom and I love her. But if I got run over by a bus tomorrow, she'd literally have to give up eReading, because there's no one else in her life that knows how to do this stuff. And that's sad and stupid and unnecessary.
Locked-In/Out IS an issue, imho. Saying that there are workaround doesn't make it go away. It's not gonna stop me from getting a reader I think is best for me (and mom) and it's not gonna stop me from using the store I think is best for me (and mom), but it WOULD stop my mom, if I wasn't around to handle it for her. And that's not right, in my Long Haired Hippie Opinion (LHHO).
