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bookshop.org is yet another retailer who eschews e-ink readers altogether, except perhaps those running Android, and basically wants customers to read only on their Android or IOS apps or on a computer. This alone disqualifies them from my consideration, though I do accept that I am in a minority. But I see no advantage they offer to those readers using tablets, computers etc.
The real problem I see for this and similar ventures is the question of why. Why would a reader want to use a platform like this? I recall seeing an article on a similar venture some time ago, which suggested there was finally an alternative for Amazon customers. What the article left out was why anyone would rationally leave Amazon for such an untried, overpriced, limited and restricted ecosystem. A look at the marketing material for that particular venture was quite revealing, as it focused entirely on benefits to publishers to the exclusion of readers, including not only robust DRM but the availability of extensive statistics.
Platforms like this are imho doomed. They have two groups of customers with very different and often conflicting interests. One set of customers is of course the often dying book stores to whom they seek to offer an online platform, and on whom they mainly focus. The other is the retail customers who they seek to sell their books to. Yet the experience they offer to the reader has nothing to recommend it as against not only Amazon but Kobo, Baen, Smashwords etc.
As a reader, why would anyone use bookshop.org?
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