DISQUS

jrconlin · 1 year ago

What bugs me is the DRM that seems strapped to nearly every ebook out there. It's honestly worse than music. (e.g. Kindle vs. Sony) Just stamp the book's data with purchaser identifying info and publish it in a nice portable manner so that i can read it wherever on whatever.

You know, like I can a book.

Carlo Zottmann · 1 year ago

True, it's far worse than music.

I usually strip the DRM from my ebooks after purchase so I can read them with Stanza. Still, it's far from being optimal.

But seriously, the DRM doesn't bug me as much as the prices. Scalzi says ebooks are just a drop in the bucket for publishers, but I can't help but think that more realistic prices would boost the concept of ebooks quite a bit.

mookie · 1 year ago

I haven't gotten any Kindle or Sony ebooks, but have some with eReader. I agree on price though. The reason I haven't bought more ebooks is because of the pricing. Why would I pay that much for a DRM laden file that I can't pass around or even resell? When compared with buying the physical book at around the same price, I can give it away after I am done or I can resell it on Ebay or I can stuff it in a box and come back to it in 10 years without worry.

I do like the idea of getting the ebook free if you buy the physical book. That would allow me to read it however I want -- curled up in bed with the real book or reading the ebook on my phone while waiting to pay for groceries.

Vicki · 1 year ago

Here's a fun one:Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution" from O'Reilly. PDF format. Looks interesting; I'd love to read it,. But $249 for a 54 page PDF file?! What were they THINKING?
http://radar.oreilly.com/research/twitter-repor...

Carlo Zottmann · 1 year ago

Holy crap! I agree.

One could argue that it's some sort of scientific paper, though… I don't know. $250, oy.