Quote:
Originally Posted by stonetools
If you've ever rented a movie from iTunes or watched a movie from the Netflix streaming service, or listened to streaming music from Pandora or Spotify, you'll find that these consumer experiences are quite enjoyable and very convenient. Generally, when people raise objections to this idea, they bring up boundary situations like "Suppose I have to go hiking in the wilderness or be on safari in deepest Africa, then how will I get to stream my ebooks."
Of course, 90 per cent of the time, people do their reading at home , where wifi is handy. For when you have to go on the road, download and buy or rent options will still be available.
Also , too, with the latest iteration of HTML, you can start reading online and continue reading offline if you so choose .
AS for time limits, if you have ever borrowed books from the library, you have dealt with this issue. You just renew the books if you aren't finished. Of course, in a for-payment rental scheme, it will cost you. You'll have to decide whether you should just go ahead and buy that 1000 page blockbuster for $14.99 or rent it, knowing you might have to pay for two or more rental periods to complete it.
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I've watched plenty of stuff on-line, and have often had spotty performance, and occasionally lose the ability to stream video mid-broadcast which can be annoying. Not all wifi is created equal, and I often travel by train, so I don't need esoteric situations like gong to the sahara to imagine poor network performance. I find time limits annoying, because I often read several books at once, returning to a book I started months before when I feel like it. So for me, rental and online models are not so good. Obviously, if enough people like them, they could do well - so we'll see.