[diddy]

Yes, you have options, but do all your books, highlights and bookmarks get sync'd across all your devices automatically? Are all your annotations and books backed up online automatically? If you get a new device, will all your books and annotations automatically appear on them? [Again, in the UK we don't have a Sony store or sync service]
That's what I said above: The service has a price ... and that's being locked in. But I don't have to worry about all this any more as it is done automatically and I can fully focus on reading now. No time wasted any more with buggy Sony software.