Quote:
Originally Posted by Cactus Chef
What we need is a publisher of Apple's size to do the same for eBooks. TOR is leading the way, but as popular as they are in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi space, it doesn't seem to have been enough to convince anyone else yet.
|
Most people who use ereaders don't change devices nearly as often as people who listen to music.
DRM-free music was instantly useful to a lot of people - they could load their purchases on to their ipods, their phones, and their home computer that had good speakers. (And their kids' MP3 players. And so on.) Also, new devices were coming out constantly - more memory, better navigation features, better sound quality - so people kept changing them, and having to register with a DRM service was a hassle.
People who read ebooks generally use one device for that--or one cloud account, less common 10+ years ago--so they barely notice the DRM. They like the multi-device sync features that can be thrown in if they stick to a single account - so they don't mind DRM if it means their laptop and phone and actual Kindle all open the book to the correct page. (DRM is not required for that, but Amazon certainly wants people to think so.)
They don't notice problems with DRM until (sigh) another store disappears, or they have to get a new device and run into limits on transfers or find that some books are no longer in their cloud library because of rights disputes.
We won't see major progress on ebook DRM removal until Kindle Unlimited collapses, or at least fades a bit.