What is your personal e-reading philosophy? Buy(from where?)or Borrow?

Flaneurette · 08-25-2026, 12:56 PM

Wondering if we can have a discussion about where we are all headed with our ebook usage going forward…I’ve been a kindle user since 2009 and have amassed a fair amount of books in my account- I’ve been dabbling in moving to kobo but can’t seem to pull the trigger. Many of my qualms boil down to my personal distaste for the founder and main shareholder of amzn but I realize my boycott would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Up until recently when the old eink kindles were cut off I had been backing up my purchases on calibre but I’ve realized I’ve been spending more of my time managing my library than actually reading(also managing my library holds). Since my annoyance with the big publishers after the whole collusion/agency model thing I’ve been really leaning into my Libby use but I’m soon losing access to my main library and after hearing about how libraries are paying unfair prices for digital books I feel I should just buy them. I can afford it I just thought I was taking some moral high road here that i realize is more complicated. I’m not much of a rereader at all but I do like to save highlights and notes on my books and revisit them- this doesn’t really work with side loaded or library books that well. I’ve also invested a fair amount in kindle hardware ie the new Colorsoft Scribe and I would like to continue using it. If I had to do it over I would certainly have chosen kobo years ago but I didn’t discover them until I was already pretty deep in amazon ecosystem. I also kind of worry about losing access to my amzn account for some random reason but I don’t really know how common this is.

It seems there is much screeching online about how kindle books are a lease and not true ownership but I’ve known this forever? It is the price to pay for convenience of digital goods I guess and won’t likely change anytime soon. I don’t agree that piracy is justified because people didn’t understand the terms of service for all these platforms.

All this long and rambling blathering is I guess a search for justification to just go ahead and buy the dang ebooks and quit dithering around with the whole baggage of it all.

Ps. I know these things have been discussed here but its scattered over numerous threads and the search isn’t that great so sorry in advance if I am repeating tired topics

Aleron Ives · 08-25-2026, 03:22 PM

I went with Kobo for greater customisation of the UI and the ability to actually own the books I purchase -- no jailbreaks necessary. All of my books are EPUB and not some proprietary Amazon format that may be unreadable decades from now, so I feel fairly confident that I'll have access to my books for the rest of my life.

As for notetaking, I export my highlights to my computer periodically, and I take notes on my computer as well, so I'm not tied to Kobo specifically if the company ends up going out of business down the road. I can move all my books to a different company's device in the future if I really need to, and in the meantime, I get to support a company that I believe has better business practices than Amazon does.

Yapyap · 08-25-2026, 03:50 PM

I used to buy most of my books in English from Amazon for a very long time, when it was still easy to download and transfer (and remove DRM while at it).

Now I mostly buy from Kobo, not least because I don’t particularly want to give Amazon more money than I absolutely need to, and only very rarely buy from Amazon, generally if there’s a free book recommended or a particularly good deal (and I always check first to make sure there’s still a current method for downloading and disinfecting).

I don’t really buy books any more unless they’re on sale - there’s maybe one series still that I’ve been getting on release (in hardcover), and now that I have a Boox, I’m also using the library more, as well as sharing a local subscription service with my mother (well, she’s subscribed to it, but it explicitly allows two users on two devices) for reading something occasionally in Estonian; I didn’t do that for over a decade and now that I’m older, I feel like .. maybe it’s a good idea to avoid losing my vocabulary, heh. But buying e-books in Estonian is something I can’t really afford, especially since almost everything is just an one-time read to pass the time and entertain me, and I’m not going to re-read.

I’m fine with borrowing and subscription models, when it’s my conscious choice. In that case I choose a book that looks interesting and read it more or less immediately; I have no need to keep it.

I do have to say though that when I’m presented with a button that says “Buy” (not “acquire a license that we may withdraw, or you can lose if our servers go under, or maybe we go out of business and then you can’t read this any more”), then I’m intending to actually keep that copy and be in charge of my own backups as well as converting it to whichever format currently suits me. I realise I’m breaking rules and possibly laws while doing so, but this is something I don’t feel guilt over.

(My “to-read” list of books bought but not yet read probably has well over 1000 books on it, many bought on a whim or back when I was very into one or another genre but didn’t get around to before overdosing. I might never want to read them multiple times, but I’d like my purchased ebooks to still be there if I get around to them some day.)

maddz · 08-25-2026, 04:06 PM

I gave up buying ebooks from Amazon when they forced a new version of Kindle for Mac two(?) years ago. I now buy from Kobo, price matching with Amazon if necessary, and other places like Humble Bundle. Everything is downloaded to Calibre and disinfected, and sideloaded to one or other Kobo (I have 2 Formas).

I occasionally borrow from the library using Libby, but they are read on my iPad as I don't connect my Kobos to wifi. I only borrow books that are unavailable to purchase as the problem is that often they only have random books in a series, or that I'm trying out a new author.

hildea · 08-25-2026, 04:08 PM

I stopped buying anything at all at Amazon several years ago. Even when I got my first ereader, I avoided Kindle, but at that time it was more to avoid being locked in than for ethical reasons.

I buy most of my books at Kobo, for convenience. It would, of course, be more ethical if I first checked whether I could buy it directly from the author, but I almost never do that. I sometimes buy from a Norwegian ebook shop, because I'd rather pay taxes to my own government than to somewhere else, but they usually don't have the books I want. And I buy some Humble Bundles.

I lost several books when a bookshop went under lots and lots of years ago. Since then, I remove DRM from all books I buy, and store a backup of my library in the cloud.

My workflow after having bought a book is:

Download the book to my PC
(If it's an .acsm link, click on the link and wait until the book is opened in Adobe Digital Editions)
Open Calibre
Import the book into Calibre. (DRM is removed, and the book is copied to a cloud backup of my Calibre library, automagically)
If I feel like it, edit the tags and series information
Plug my ereader to my PC and use Calibre's "Send to device"

This is, of course, more hassle than clicking a buy link in the ereader, but to me it's worth it to know that I'm not going to lose my books in some accidental bug or deliberate enshittification event.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flaneurette

All this long and rambling blathering is I guess a search for justification to just go ahead and buy the dang ebooks and quit dithering around with the whole baggage of it all.

As a general rule, I try to be a somewhat ethical consumer, but I have no ambition to be perfect. There are lots of things I could do to avoid giving money or personal data to companies I dislike, but which I don't do because it's too much hassle. I'm not going to condemn anyone else for not being perfect

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yapyap

I do have to say though that when I’m presented with a button that says “Buy” (not “acquire a license that we may withdraw, or you can lose if our servers go under, or maybe we go out of business and then you can’t read this any more”), then I’m intending to actually keep that copy and be in charge of my own backups as well as converting it to whichever format currently suits me. I realise I’m breaking rules and possibly laws while doing so, but this is something I don’t feel guilt over.

I agree!

DNSB · 08-25-2026, 04:32 PM

As a Kobo owner, I mostly purchase my ebooks from Kobo and other stores such as Baen that supply ePub versions. I used to purchase Amazon ebooks for my spouse but after Download and Transfer was removed, those purchases have become much fewer. There are still a few where I remove DRM and convert to ePub which since I'm paying for those ebooks, I feel no qualms about.

As for annotations? I mostly use those to record errors in ebooks and then delete them after I have edited the ebook to correct those errors.

DiapDealer · 08-25-2026, 04:51 PM

I'll try to be as brief as I can.

I just buy ebooks. It happens to be from Amazon for the most part right now. I don't stay with them out of love, and I don't hate their practices/policies enough to leave. The fact of the matter is: I don't look too closely at the ethics of anyone I buy anything from. If I did, I probably would never buy anything ever again. And as shallow as it may sound: I like my things.

I'm invested in the Amazon ecosystem, and I'm not willing to spend the money and time un-investing.

Lock-in and walled-gardens are of no concern to me. Mainly because I don't buy ebooks until I'm ready to read them, and very rarely re-read. So maintaining a library of ebooks to be read sometime in the future by different hardware/apps is not something I do. I don't bother removing DRM for those same reasons.

I also don't modify ebooks for my own personal reading preferences. If the formatting is bad enough to distract me. I return the ebook and buy another one.

And lastly... I don't use eink devices. So I can buy ebooks from any vender and read them in their own apps on multiple devices I own.

I am free of any emotional, ethical, or technical issues to read what I want, when I want, on what I want. And that is what I do.

gbm · 08-25-2026, 05:30 PM

Buy, from the best price as long as it is drm free or I can remove the drm.

bernie

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flaneurette

Wondering if we can have a discussion about where we are all headed with our ebook usage going forward…I’ve been a kindle user since 2009 and have amassed a fair amount of books in my account- I’ve been dabbling in moving to kobo but can’t seem to pull the trigger. Many of my qualms boil down to my personal distaste for the founder and main shareholder of amzn but I realize my boycott would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Up until recently when the old eink kindles were cut off I had been backing up my purchases on calibre but I’ve realized I’ve been spending more of my time managing my library than actually reading(also managing my library holds). Since my annoyance with the big publishers after the whole collusion/agency model thing I’ve been really leaning into my Libby use but I’m soon losing access to my main library and after hearing about how libraries are paying unfair prices for digital books I feel I should just buy them. I can afford it I just thought I was taking some moral high road here that i realize is more complicated. I’m not much of a rereader at all but I do like to save highlights and notes on my books and revisit them- this doesn’t really work with side loaded or library books that well. I’ve also invested a fair amount in kindle hardware ie the new Colorsoft Scribe and I would like to continue using it. If I had to do it over I would certainly have chosen kobo years ago but I didn’t discover them until I was already pretty deep in amazon ecosystem. I also kind of worry about losing access to my amzn account for some random reason but I don’t really know how common this is.

It seems there is much screeching online about how kindle books are a lease and not true ownership but I’ve known this forever? It is the price to pay for convenience of digital goods I guess and won’t likely change anytime soon. I don’t agree that piracy is justified because people didn’t understand the terms of service for all these platforms.

All this long and rambling blathering is I guess a search for justification to just go ahead and buy the dang ebooks and quit dithering around with the whole baggage of it all.

Ps. I know these things have been discussed here but its scattered over numerous threads and the search isn’t that great so sorry in advance if I am repeating tired topics

nana77 · 08-25-2026, 07:15 PM

I was used to buy from a serie of sci-fi, at newspaper stands, in my country; had some harcovered collections of some comic series when released, too, as thought unmissable.
When having done my first fiber cabled internet provider's contract (after some years of wobbling wifi), thought that the less expensive thing to do that would had had the maximum profit, would had been to download some books (kilobytes / Mbps), and I did (still laying on an HDD, althought I'm not really reading them now); by those years I also recall a friend of mine (the kind one that would had read encyclopedia, if there wasn't anything else - he was from Sofia and in the '60 there wasn't granted a vaste choice) saying that if someone's hungry, stealing a book wouldn't be a sin.

I like to buy ebooks, now; restarted within the same sci-fi serie, on Kobo; then while searching for some, discovering that I can only find them as used; then, while trying to find one specific that as used wasn't cheap, discovered a library nearby that had two donations of 3500 and 1500 sci-books, from the '70s/'80s, and borrowed. Nice maintained and awesome versions, as also the prefaces are original by then.
I now start finding myself fine by reading not translated novels, and thought this by itself would be an advantage as there are several novels that I can read in them original versions, there are chanches to find them on public domain or very discounted.
But as there are hugely many, I'll take my time before feeling submerged by a TBR digital pile.
Still I like to buy from Kobo, or paste bought ones to Pocketbook; or onto the tablet with KOReader for comics and graphic novels (in there I'd installed the Kindle app, 2 manga at the moment; though the panel zoom reading feature is nice).
The ones I'm into are collections of short sci-fi, or sword and sorcery; so good for to get into the language, but I'd like to finish those and get onto a reading of one book at time, as I don't like having multiple ones opened.
Ps: had that confession onto the tip of the tongue for awile, so thanks for the chance

.

Uncle Robin · 08-25-2026, 07:35 PM

I buy almost all my ebooks from Kobo and remove the DRM because my preferred reading app is KOReader. So I download via Kobo Desktop, De-DRM via the obok plugin in Calibre, transfer to my Sage (always) and my Libra Colour (normally). then read. Now that Kobo has TSG integration I am reading more of my purchases at least partly in the stock Kobo reader on my Libra Colour for the convenience of automatic progress updates on TSG.

Sirtel · 08-25-2026, 10:32 PM

I don't use libraries. I strongly dislike borrowing and subscribing with books (I'm okay with movie subscribing, but then I rarely watch movies or TV) - I reread, and I also edit the formatting of all my ebooks. So I buy all my books. Wherever they're available or cheapest, including Amazon. The DRM gets removed immediately and the book gets added to my calibre library. I sideload everything, no matter which ereader I'm using.

I've always done the above, my habits haven't changed in 15 years. So I've never been invested in any ecosystem. I don't take notes or highlight.

As to ethics or morality, don't care. I'm a pragmatic and an egoist, my own interests come first. I'm not the type who lives by principles or votes with their wallet.

DrNefario · 08-26-2026, 05:13 AM

I buy 95% of my ebooks from Amazon and then read them on my Kindle.

(Or, quite often, add them to the queue to eventually be read on the Kindle. Or maybe never be read.)

That's the headline. The rest is small print.

I occasionally borrow from local libraries (ADE->EPUB device), or buy EPUBs from other sources (ADE->Calibre->EPUB device, if DRMed, straight to Calibre if not). I have also had a few short spells on KU, and borrowed the odd Prime Reading book. I'm not a big re-reader, so I don't really care if I borrow or buy something.

Very rarely I will read in the kindle app on my phone. Less rarely I will read on my ipad, which is also used for PDFs and comics. Mostly I read kindle books on my kindle and epubs on my kobo.

Aleron Ives · 08-26-2026, 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirtel

As to ethics or morality, don't care. I'm a pragmatic and an egoist, my own interests come first.

I will go out on a limb and dispute your self characterisation a bit. You must care about ethics to some extent, since you're buying your books. This would suggest you're taking the interests of the authors into account, in addition to your own.

DNSB · 08-26-2026, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

I will go out on a limb and dispute your self characterisation a bit. You must care about ethics to some extent, since you're buying your books. This would suggest you're taking the interests of the authors into account, in addition to your own.

Pragmatism says buying books and supporting authors is simple self-interest. After all, if we all pirated books, who would be writing our next read?

bdub · 08-26-2026, 09:05 PM

Library and public domain books make up 95% of my eBook reading. When I can't find the books between those two, then I'll "buy" a book for my KOBO. I've given up on Amazon. And I have more than one library card to maximize my ability to find the books I want to read.

08-25-2026, 12:56 PM	#1
Flaneurette Gadget collector Posts: 50 Karma: 123456 Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: usa Device: Kindle oasis3/Kobo sage/nook4&4+/Kindle Scribe	What is your personal e-reading philosophy? Buy(from where?)or Borrow? Wondering if we can have a discussion about where we are all headed with our ebook usage going forward…I’ve been a kindle user since 2009 and have amassed a fair amount of books in my account- I’ve been dabbling in moving to kobo but can’t seem to pull the trigger. Many of my qualms boil down to my personal distaste for the founder and main shareholder of amzn but I realize my boycott would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. Up until recently when the old eink kindles were cut off I had been backing up my purchases on calibre but I’ve realized I’ve been spending more of my time managing my library than actually reading(also managing my library holds). Since my annoyance with the big publishers after the whole collusion/agency model thing I’ve been really leaning into my Libby use but I’m soon losing access to my main library and after hearing about how libraries are paying unfair prices for digital books I feel I should just buy them. I can afford it I just thought I was taking some moral high road here that i realize is more complicated. I’m not much of a rereader at all but I do like to save highlights and notes on my books and revisit them- this doesn’t really work with side loaded or library books that well. I’ve also invested a fair amount in kindle hardware ie the new Colorsoft Scribe and I would like to continue using it. If I had to do it over I would certainly have chosen kobo years ago but I didn’t discover them until I was already pretty deep in amazon ecosystem. I also kind of worry about losing access to my amzn account for some random reason but I don’t really know how common this is. It seems there is much screeching online about how kindle books are a lease and not true ownership but I’ve known this forever? It is the price to pay for convenience of digital goods I guess and won’t likely change anytime soon. I don’t agree that piracy is justified because people didn’t understand the terms of service for all these platforms. All this long and rambling blathering is I guess a search for justification to just go ahead and buy the dang ebooks and quit dithering around with the whole baggage of it all. Ps. I know these things have been discussed here but its scattered over numerous threads and the search isn’t that great so sorry in advance if I am repeating tired topics

08-25-2026, 04:51 PM	#7
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 29,698 Karma: 212474403 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	I'll try to be as brief as I can. I just buy ebooks. It happens to be from Amazon for the most part right now. I don't stay with them out of love, and I don't hate their practices/policies enough to leave. The fact of the matter is: I don't look too closely at the ethics of anyone I buy anything from. If I did, I probably would never buy anything ever again. And as shallow as it may sound: I like my things. I'm invested in the Amazon ecosystem, and I'm not willing to spend the money and time un-investing. Lock-in and walled-gardens are of no concern to me. Mainly because I don't buy ebooks until I'm ready to read them, and very rarely re-read. So maintaining a library of ebooks to be read sometime in the future by different hardware/apps is not something I do. I don't bother removing DRM for those same reasons. I also don't modify ebooks for my own personal reading preferences. If the formatting is bad enough to distract me. I return the ebook and buy another one. And lastly... I don't use eink devices. So I can buy ebooks from any vender and read them in their own apps on multiple devices I own. I am free of any emotional, ethical, or technical issues to read what I want, when I want, on what I want. And that is what I do. Last edited by DiapDealer; 08-25-2026 at 04:55 PM.

08-25-2026, 07:15 PM	#9
nana77 Wizard Posts: 2,848 Karma: 3042690 Join Date: May 2025 Device: Kobo Forma, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	I was used to buy from a serie of sci-fi, at newspaper stands, in my country; had some harcovered collections of some comic series when released, too, as thought unmissable. When having done my first fiber cabled internet provider's contract (after some years of wobbling wifi), thought that the less expensive thing to do that would had had the maximum profit, would had been to download some books (kilobytes / Mbps), and I did (still laying on an HDD, althought I'm not really reading them now); by those years I also recall a friend of mine (the kind one that would had read encyclopedia, if there wasn't anything else - he was from Sofia and in the '60 there wasn't granted a vaste choice) saying that if someone's hungry, stealing a book wouldn't be a sin. I like to buy ebooks, now; restarted within the same sci-fi serie, on Kobo; then while searching for some, discovering that I can only find them as used; then, while trying to find one specific that as used wasn't cheap, discovered a library nearby that had two donations of 3500 and 1500 sci-books, from the '70s/'80s, and borrowed. Nice maintained and awesome versions, as also the prefaces are original by then. I now start finding myself fine by reading not translated novels, and thought this by itself would be an advantage as there are several novels that I can read in them original versions, there are chanches to find them on public domain or very discounted. But as there are hugely many, I'll take my time before feeling submerged by a TBR digital pile. Still I like to buy from Kobo, or paste bought ones to Pocketbook; or onto the tablet with KOReader for comics and graphic novels (in there I'd installed the Kindle app, 2 manga at the moment; though the panel zoom reading feature is nice). The ones I'm into are collections of short sci-fi, or sword and sorcery; so good for to get into the language, but I'd like to finish those and get onto a reading of one book at time, as I don't like having multiple ones opened. Ps: had that confession onto the tip of the tongue for awile, so thanks for the chance . Last edited by nana77; 08-25-2026 at 07:32 PM. Reason: ortography, typos, syntax

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08-25-2026, 03:22 PM	#2
Aleron Ives Wizard Posts: 1,919 Karma: 17671736 Join Date: Sep 2022 Device: Kobo Libra 2	I went with Kobo for greater customisation of the UI and the ability to actually own the books I purchase -- no jailbreaks necessary. All of my books are EPUB and not some proprietary Amazon format that may be unreadable decades from now, so I feel fairly confident that I'll have access to my books for the rest of my life. As for notetaking, I export my highlights to my computer periodically, and I take notes on my computer as well, so I'm not tied to Kobo specifically if the company ends up going out of business down the road. I can move all my books to a different company's device in the future if I really need to, and in the meantime, I get to support a company that I believe has better business practices than Amazon does.

08-25-2026, 03:50 PM	#3
Yapyap Guru Posts: 970 Karma: 5555555 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Estonia Device: Kindle Oasis 2, Boox Go 7 Colour Gen II, Boox Go 10.3	I used to buy most of my books in English from Amazon for a very long time, when it was still easy to download and transfer (and remove DRM while at it). Now I mostly buy from Kobo, not least because I don’t particularly want to give Amazon more money than I absolutely need to, and only very rarely buy from Amazon, generally if there’s a free book recommended or a particularly good deal (and I always check first to make sure there’s still a current method for downloading and disinfecting). I don’t really buy books any more unless they’re on sale - there’s maybe one series still that I’ve been getting on release (in hardcover), and now that I have a Boox, I’m also using the library more, as well as sharing a local subscription service with my mother (well, she’s subscribed to it, but it explicitly allows two users on two devices) for reading something occasionally in Estonian; I didn’t do that for over a decade and now that I’m older, I feel like .. maybe it’s a good idea to avoid losing my vocabulary, heh. But buying e-books in Estonian is something I can’t really afford, especially since almost everything is just an one-time read to pass the time and entertain me, and I’m not going to re-read. I’m fine with borrowing and subscription models, when it’s my conscious choice. In that case I choose a book that looks interesting and read it more or less immediately; I have no need to keep it. I do have to say though that when I’m presented with a button that says “Buy” (not “acquire a license that we may withdraw, or you can lose if our servers go under, or maybe we go out of business and then you can’t read this any more”), then I’m intending to actually keep that copy and be in charge of my own backups as well as converting it to whichever format currently suits me. I realise I’m breaking rules and possibly laws while doing so, but this is something I don’t feel guilt over. (My “to-read” list of books bought but not yet read probably has well over 1000 books on it, many bought on a whim or back when I was very into one or another genre but didn’t get around to before overdosing. I might never want to read them multiple times, but I’d like my purchased ebooks to still be there if I get around to them some day.)

08-25-2026, 04:06 PM	#4
maddz Wizard Posts: 1,597 Karma: 30468958 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: UK Device: Kobo Forma, Icarus, iPad Mini 2, Kobo Touch, Google Nexus 7	I gave up buying ebooks from Amazon when they forced a new version of Kindle for Mac two(?) years ago. I now buy from Kobo, price matching with Amazon if necessary, and other places like Humble Bundle. Everything is downloaded to Calibre and disinfected, and sideloaded to one or other Kobo (I have 2 Formas). I occasionally borrow from the library using Libby, but they are read on my iPad as I don't connect my Kobos to wifi. I only borrow books that are unavailable to purchase as the problem is that often they only have random books in a series, or that I'm trying out a new author.

08-25-2026, 04:32 PM	#6
DNSB Bibliophagist Posts: 54,108 Karma: 182150337 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: Vancouver Device: Kobo Sage, Libra Colour, Lenovo M8 FHD, Paperwhite 4, Tolino epos	As a Kobo owner, I mostly purchase my ebooks from Kobo and other stores such as Baen that supply ePub versions. I used to purchase Amazon ebooks for my spouse but after Download and Transfer was removed, those purchases have become much fewer. There are still a few where I remove DRM and convert to ePub which since I'm paying for those ebooks, I feel no qualms about. As for annotations? I mostly use those to record errors in ebooks and then delete them after I have edited the ebook to correct those errors.

08-25-2026, 07:35 PM	#10
Uncle Robin Diligent dilettante Posts: 3,780 Karma: 52758936 Join Date: Sep 2019 Location: in my mind Device: Kobo Sage; Kobo Libra Colour	I buy almost all my ebooks from Kobo and remove the DRM because my preferred reading app is KOReader. So I download via Kobo Desktop, De-DRM via the obok plugin in Calibre, transfer to my Sage (always) and my Libra Colour (normally). then read. Now that Kobo has TSG integration I am reading more of my purchases at least partly in the stock Kobo reader on my Libra Colour for the convenience of automatic progress updates on TSG.

08-25-2026, 10:32 PM	#11
Sirtel Grand Sorcerer Posts: 15,632 Karma: 250801379 Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Estonia Device: Kobo Sage & Libra 2	I don't use libraries. I strongly dislike borrowing and subscribing with books (I'm okay with movie subscribing, but then I rarely watch movies or TV) - I reread, and I also edit the formatting of all my ebooks. So I buy all my books. Wherever they're available or cheapest, including Amazon. The DRM gets removed immediately and the book gets added to my calibre library. I sideload everything, no matter which ereader I'm using. I've always done the above, my habits haven't changed in 15 years. So I've never been invested in any ecosystem. I don't take notes or highlight. As to ethics or morality, don't care. I'm a pragmatic and an egoist, my own interests come first. I'm not the type who lives by principles or votes with their wallet.

08-26-2026, 05:13 AM	#12
DrNefario Wizard Posts: 2,305 Karma: 12408712 Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: UK Device: Kindle, Kobo Touch, Nook SimpleTouch	I buy 95% of my ebooks from Amazon and then read them on my Kindle. (Or, quite often, add them to the queue to eventually be read on the Kindle. Or maybe never be read.) That's the headline. The rest is small print. I occasionally borrow from local libraries (ADE->EPUB device), or buy EPUBs from other sources (ADE->Calibre->EPUB device, if DRMed, straight to Calibre if not). I have also had a few short spells on KU, and borrowed the odd Prime Reading book. I'm not a big re-reader, so I don't really care if I borrow or buy something. Very rarely I will read in the kindle app on my phone. Less rarely I will read on my ipad, which is also used for PDFs and comics. Mostly I read kindle books on my kindle and epubs on my kobo.

08-26-2026, 09:05 PM	#15
bdub Connoisseur Posts: 56 Karma: 730488 Join Date: Sep 2025 Device: Kobo Clara BW	Library and public domain books make up 95% of my eBook reading. When I can't find the books between those two, then I'll "buy" a book for my KOBO. I've given up on Amazon. And I have more than one library card to maximize my ability to find the books I want to read.

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