Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
If I were to apologize every time I was in error, I would spend all my time saying I'm sorry! As long as one isn't trying to insult someone or isn't being malicious I see no reason to apologize for making mistakes. I do try to acknowledge that I was in error or that the other person is correct.
IMPO, the big reasons that DRM free is important for completion in the ebook store industry are
- the consumer doesn't have to worry about losing access to their ebooks. When Sony closed down their estore, then the customers no longer had access to a percentage of ebooks that had been pulled from the Sony store because the contract had expired. I think I had about a dozen books that didn't make the transition from Sony to Kobo. Fortunately, I download my ebooks as I purchase them, so I have them all.
- Even if a consumer reads on a tablet rather than a dedicated ebook reader, most probably don't want to have to have a bunch of reader apps and remember which app they used to purchase which ebook. For example, I have all my ebooks in Marvin, even though I bought them from Sony, Amazon and Baen.
Yes, obviously Amazon would prefer that you buy all your ebooks from them and read those books on your kindle device, just like Apple would prefer that you buy all your music from the iTunes store and listen on your iPod. However, Apple figured out that they would have more long term customers if they gave them the ability to rip CD's and put that music in their iTunes library. Given that Amazon put the effort into writing a kindle app for all sorts of different devices (a lesson that Sony didn't learn until they had already too far behind to catch up), and that Amazon allows the publisher to decide on DRM, it's pretty obvious that Amazon understands that they need to be flexible with customers. I would not be surprised if Amazon goes the Apple route and adds support for non Amazon formats to the kindle apps, as well as allows customers the flexibility of uploading their none Amazon books to the amazon cloud.
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I think in the case of Sony it is a small percentage. Kobo is more nefarious in my opinion as Kobo apps on some tablets, will only allow you to read books purchased from Kobo, and I have yet to have a nicely behaving Kobo ereader. Still they seem to be thriving (according to Kobo subforum threads) despite having two types of DRM and I am wondering why. Oh right coupons.
I think (opinion here so bare with) that Apple saw the literally millions of songs being downloaded by mere children and that was the big motivation, not customer flexibility. That is just spin IMO.
And they had the option to divide an album into individual songs. In Canada the major market for music has always been the 13 and under crowd. Well since the 60's anyway. Their parents may pay, but they are the ones with the major need to have the latest songs. Changing the price to $1 or so per song makes sense in this market as all but the very poorest have a spare buck or two. Few children/early teens buy ebooks, their parents buy them for them so their is no saving of the allowance or going without that hot T-Shirt etc.
EBooks on the other hand can not be broken down conveniently. The majority of adults would not be buying books chapter by chapter just so they could spread a $10.00 purchase over a few weeks or months. Not saying it wouldn't happen, just not a common occurrence.
And yes indeed, lots of adults buy songs regularly for$1, but many of them were okay with buying albums, CDs, DVDs etc. and I know many adults from young to old who regularly buy DVDS of Movies and TV series, often DRMed and zone protected etc. for more than the price of an eBook. Go figure.
Helen