Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
The thing is that ebook vendors don't do that. There are only 2 situations I'm aware of that even resemble this. Sometimes vendors go out of business. Normally, but not always, they make arrangements with other vendors to keep making purchased books available. B&N didn't do that when they shut down in England but most do. Microsoft recently announced they're shutting down their book service and everyone who bought books is getting a full refund.
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About half the retailers that shut down after I bought books from them did not sell their customers to another retailer. When B&N shut down Fictionwise, I lost access to dozens of ebooks. If I didn't have them downloaded, I would have been out of luck.
Microsoft is giving their customers full refunds because their books could only be read on their readers (Microsoft Edge browsers, I think), and when they shut it down, the users can't read the books they bought at all. That's one of the reasons why I will never buy from companies like Glose, which only let you read books online in their app. Microsoft is big enough, and rich enough, that they can afford to refund their customers' money when they shut it down. If Glose shuts down, and can't sell their customer base to Kobo, which seems to be the only existing retailer that has bought any, their customers will be out of luck.