Quote:
Originally Posted by Yapyap
Right now, perhaps there aren't all that many people whom it would affect, indeed - but now that the widespread usage of ereaders is, say, 2-3 years old, there will be more and more people whose first reader has died / will die soon and who, when looking for their next reader, might decide to switch from their Sony to a Kindle, or from their Kindle to a glowlight Nook, or from their Kindle to a Kobo (never mind from their iPad, where they bought books from the iBookstore, to an Android tablet or eInk reader of any sort) - and will then realise that their dozens of already bought books (some of which they may not even have read yet) will not work on the new reader.
Some people will be knowledgeable enough to find out about that beforehand and either stick with the brand (or format) they had before, even if another brand offers more things they like, but not everyone will realise there is a reason to even look into it, being used to being able to play their DVDs in more than one brand of DVD player and their store-bought mp3 files in more than one brand of mp3 player.
I don't think this sort of scenario is out of the question for the "average consumer" (who is likely a reasonably avid reader, if they already had an eInk reader - leaving out tablets here as tablets can be rooted or are natively able to use apps for various formats) - if not yet now, then in another year or two this may become a fairly significant issue for a lot of people.
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I suppose that if I had to change eReaders and I had some unread books on my old one it might be a problem, but I am happy with my Kindle and if something happened to it I would just buy another one. As for all the books that I had bought and already read, I would hardly need to have those in a new format. I think that DRM is an issue for a very small number of people, probably most of them geeks.