Quote:
Originally Posted by ownedbycats
Also, Kobo actually lets you download your books (both Adobe DRM and DRM-free) from the site without buying their hardware!
|
Barnes & Noble and their Nook used to let you do that too. But then they stopped allowing you to download to your computer for backups. So I switched to Amazon and their Kindle, because they allowed downloads. Now Amazon is stopping downloads (currently only for "rented" items and newly published items, but we all know what's coming next, and probably very soon). So now I'm supposed to switch to Kobo and their Clara (or whatever), because they allow downloads? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me a third time? No, I do not think I will position myself for that to happen again.
The bright spot for me is that I already have purchased and de-DRM'ed enough books to last me far beyond the years I have left to live. I do hope that will be another 25 or 30 years, but still, I'm set as far as books go. So while Amazon's recent move may stop me from buying yet-to-be-released book 17 in some series that I have been collecting, that doesn't matter too much since I haven't even gotten around to reading books 1 thru 16 yet. Being a pack-rat for books may be scoffed at by some people. And it is a large expense while you are doing it. But when retailers like Amazon make the moves they are making right now, I can switch from being a pack-rat to being a non-purchaser without suffering any significant hit. So be it.
You see this behavior of corporations trying to lock you into their walled garden everywhere. If you wanted a good choice of movies to watch in the past, you used to be able to subscribe to Netflix. Now it's mostly their self-produced movies, which are hit or miss. To get a selection of movies nowadays, you need to subscribe at significant expense to Netflix, and Paramount+, and Hulu, and Disney, and HBO Max, and Amazon Prime, and a bunch of other streaming services that all have their own "exclusive content". They are all putting themselves out of business. Maybe not now in the short term, but in the long term. I think Amazon may be going down that same path with eBooks now. Exclusive content and brutally enforced walled gardens only work when you are the biggest gorilla in the room. And "biggest gorilla" is a Bell Curve. Amazon has clawed their way to the top of the curve at this moment, but they won't remain there forever. Viewed from the top, it is downhill in every direction. Corporations tend to forget this simple truth. They try to fortify the top where they temporarily sit, so nobody else can get there. But this strategy always fails in the end.