Quote:
Originally Posted by carpetmojo
So it makes stopping other readers with other devices using the Amazon books [ "it ain't necessarily so-o-o"  ] almost seem petty and a bit pointlessly vindictive, as the books are still bought and paid for, at the end of the day..Specially if it doesn't work anyway .........  |
Actually, there is another reason for amazon not supporting other ebook readers, regardless of whether DRM works or not. It is called "not doing your enemies any favors".
This has three aspects:
First, competitive readers mostly use Adobe DRM so if Amazon were to sell compatible files they would have to pay adobe to use their system, whch includes per-book and per-reader charges, and would require Amazon to rely on Adobe servers to authenticate ebooks before sale and would complicate user support as issues relating to the DRM would not be in Amazon's power to fix. Add it all up and it means extra cost for Amazon over what it costs to sell kindle-only ebooks.
Second, adobe's role in the ebook business is to enable Amazon competitors, who so far, taken all together, sell less ebooks and readers than Amazon does. Amazon using adobe's system *at this time* would not only give money to the enabler of their competitors, it would fortify its position as the annointed epub DRM "standard" and validate its use by competitors. (Oddly, the people terrorized by Amazon's market share and "dominance" seem perfectly content with the idea of adobe controlling everything except Apple's share.)
Third, if Amazon's ebookstore supported non-Kindle readers, they would be just another adobe client instead of being in total control of their own user experience. Their ebookstore would be just one in a crowd. Conversely the quality of the ebookstore would not be unique to Kindle readers so the Kindle readers would be interchangeable with any generic adobe-compatible reader.
Whatever you may think of DRM (I think it is a plague we would all be better off without) and without endorsing lock-in (again, not good for consumers; but honestly, lock-in to adobe is not terribly different from lock-in to amazon), it is pretty clear that Amazon bucking the herd is a good competitive strategy *at this point in time*. It is *not* self-defeating, but rather an effective competitive tactic.
Approve or disapprove of it, the tactic is sound; by depriving competitive reader vendors of access to their ebookstore, they boost kindle hardware sales--by boosting kindle hardware sales (and putting kindle reading apps on every platform of note), they drive customers to their store and minimize the visibility and power of their competitors and their enabler, adobe. Compared to that, any lock-in of people unfamiliar with DRM-removal is just frosting on the cake.
Amazon knows exactly what they're doing..