Quote:
Originally Posted by Manabi
If the BPHs want to remove the stranglehold Amazon has on them (which is, as you note, their own fault), the best thing they could do would be to get rid of DRM on eBooks.
(Snip)
The BPHs will eventually realize they need to do this to increase competition, but it'll be far, far too late to help them much.
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It may already be too late for DRM-free to help.
Having neutered interactive epub in the larger, more mature markerts, the BPHs fostered walled garden ecosystems which, quite naturally, are evolving into distinct, proprietary formats. DRM isn't the only thing keeping iBooks from being opened in Kindles. Take away DRM and the incentive to differentiate the formats with "enhancements" goes up. The likeliest scenario would be similar to what is now playing out in game consoles where both Sony and Microsoft built their current gen consoles off similar cpus and gpus, which makes it relatively easy to port games back and forth but prevents interoperability so the two ecosystems remain separate.
A second problem is the "tyranny of the installed base" where the majority of the existing mature markets is already commited to one ecosystem or another.
The time for DRM-free was late 2010-early 2012 precisely the period during which ebooks became maibstream in the US/UK and agency was effectively steering consumers towards Amazon.
At this point getting people to willingly abandon their vendor of choice requires a big incentive in either features or pricing. Both approaches would be expensive on the publishing side and far from a certain success.
At this point all they can do is grin and bear it at least until the current contracts expire.