Quote:
Originally Posted by DomesticExtremis
I'm beginning to think that Kobo have got the right sales pitch -
people don't want to be locked inside walled gardens, they just want
an e-reader and be able to read books from wherever.
Imagine how it would be if you could only buy dead-tree books
from one chain of bookshops.
Anti-competition lawyers would have a field day.
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*Knowledgeable* people don't want to be in walled gardens. All the others don't care one zilch, at least not in the beginning. They just want something, and they don't want:
- To read a manual
- To learn anything
- To think where to get something
- To think about how to back stuff up
- To think about the future with regard to their purchases
- ....
In short: They just want books / apps / games / series / songs / whatever, and they don't want to think about anything else. They are happy to place their trust in Apple, Amazon, Kobo, Steam, or whomever, and they just hope that everything is taken care of *for* them, that it will work, now and in the future, until the end of days.
If that comes with a walled garden, so be it.
The problems start if they're not happy inside the garden anymore for some reason, and they want out. Then they lack the knowledge, information, patience or skill to leave, while retaining their purchases. So, they stay. They stay, until the company that built the garden goes broke, and then *poof*, everything could be gone in one fell swoop.
As long as your books have DRM, you're still in a walled garden: The Adobe one, for example. OK, the Adobe garden has a Sony section, a Kobo section, and so on. With some hassle, you can move from one to the other, but if you ever want an e-reader that doesn't do Adobe EPUB DRM, then you're still stuck.