Slightly off topic - Ebooks

[mkomarinski-GqRSzq0LZOzYtjvyW6yDsg at public.gmane.org (Mark Komarinski)]

Dan Ritter wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 07, 2010 at 12:08:51AM -0500, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
>   
>>> Yes. Don't buy DRM'd books. Wait for another year or so; the
>>> market will sort itself out, and the hardware will get better
>>> and cheaper.
>>>       
>> This is really the comment I'm curious about.  Why do you say "don't buy drm
>> books?"  What do you think will change in the next year, and what bad thing
>> do you think will happen, if you buy drm'd books within the next year?
>>     
>
> The "bad thing" is licensing DRM'd books; it's already here.  Publishers
> are going to either move to DRM-free ebooks or find themselves doing
> too much work for too little return. As customers grow more savvy about
> ebooks, they will express a preference for non-DRM'd ebooks. One of
> the factors driving that will be a desire to avoid lock-in. When you
> change ebook readers, your library will need to move with you, even
> across manufacturers.
>   
The hype around the iPad (love it or hate it) says otherwise.  It, the 
iPhone, and the iPod touch are all completely locked devices and they're 
selling or going to sell like hotcakes.
> Will you grant me that in the timeframe of the next decade, Moore's Law
> will continue to generally hold? That is, solid-state electronics of a
> given capacity will get cheaper, or you'll be able to buy more capacity
> for the same money?
>   
Technology advances.  So let's wait until technology is perfected before 
we buy something.
> Given that, the price of ebook readers will drop substantially.  Right
> now, we're at a stage similar to that of PDAs when Palm introduced the
> Palm Pilot III: a decent form factor and decent software at a price that
> people start to see as reasonable for the functions performed. But in the
> near future, the displays which were expensive and small and power-hungry
> (if you wanted color) became cheap and larger and higher-resolution and
> more efficient.
>
> There's only one supplier of e-Ink screens right now. This will change.
>
> e-Ink is monochrome except for prototypes now. This will change.
>
> e-Ink doesn't react fast enough for video display. This might change
> through improvements to e-Ink, or it might change through the development
> of some other display technology.
>
> Capacitative touchscreens are expensive right now. This will change.
>
> Battery technology is always improving.
>
> Processor technology is always improving. Ditto solid-state storage.
>   
Given what I use my Kindle for and the fact that I already have a cell 
phone and netbook, the Kindle does exactly what I want.  I don't want a 
device that looks or acts like a laptop - I already have one and it's 
terrible for reading text for long periods of time.
> A few years from now, you will consider a gray-scale, page-flickering,
> non-video-playing, limited web-browsing ebook with connectivity locked
> to one store to be hopelessly behind the times.
>   
You're assuming that Amazon remains stagnant.  IMO, Apple has another 
AppleTV on their hands, Sony is the epitome of lock-in, and the Nook is 
the thing that will either save or doom Barnes and Noble.  Amazon 
doesn't depend on Kindle sales to keep them in business, so they can 
afford to keep dumping development money into it.  Oh, and the 
connectivity (at least on Kindle) is not limited to only the Kindle store.
> Incidentally, I also expect that 3G and similar long-distance wireless
> data schemes will not be a standard feature. Instead, most ebook readers
> will talk to your cellphone over BlueTooth or something similar.
>   
Uhh, the Kindle, (some) Sony, and Nook all have 3G and offer it free as 
part of the cost of the device and e-books.  The iPad will offer it as a 
separate fee.  Otherwise, you can use the existing USB cable to just 
move files over.  A bluetooth connection would be nice, though most cell 
carriers charge extra for tethering, if it's available at all (I'm 
looking at you, Droid and iPhone).

As for me, when I bought my Kindle I had all these things to consider 
along with the life of the books I have.  Given how Apple has moved to a 
DRM-free platform I hold the same hope for books, though it may take a 
few years.  In the end, it wound up being a simple cost-benefit 
analysis.  While the books have DRM and can't be shared with other 
Kindle users, for the books that I want to read on the Kindle, that 
doesn't matter.  I get new hardcover books for a fraction the price of 
going to the bookstore and it's delivered instantly.

-Mark