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Comment by troymc | Hacker News Reader

I got a Kindle in August, which has a similar "all your books in our cloud" approach. Now I worry about Amazon being able to cancel or delete my account, cutting me off from every book I bought in the Kindle Store. I feel like that's giving them too much power.

The same problem exists with the new Google ebooks service.

I back up my computer with Time Machine and Carbonite. I'm not worried about losing the ebooks stored on my computer. I don't need Amazon or Google to "keep my books safe."

Compare to O'Reilly Media: "Whenever possible we provide [eBooks] to you in five DRM-free file formats — PDF, ePub, Kindle-compatible .mobi, DAISY, and Android .apk — that you can use on the devices of your choice." (from their website)

Music from iTunes is similar to eBooks from O'Reilly: no DRM, download the files and store them yourself.

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They say that you can download ePub or PDF to read "offline" or on an ereader.

http://books.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answ...

I believe there are backup tools for the Kindle that strip out the DRM and save the books to your PC.

But essentially this is the same risk as your house burning down and taking your books with it. I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

I have home insurance, so if my house burns down I get the cash to buy replacement books. I doubt that they'd pay out if Amazon shut down Kindle.

I think amazon has shown that they at least pay you back after they take away your book. Not that its good that they can take away your books though.

That's why I never bought a Kindle.It's like paying for a book but be forced to keep it only at the shopkeeper's shelf. Kindle means I don't own the book I have paid for. Giving them too much power is another thing that I'm wary of. So I still use various mail accounts, various options for online activities instead of going ga-ga over all things G.

That's why I never bought a Kindle.It's like paying for a book but be forced to keep it only at the shopkeeper's shelf.

I don't know of any actual Kindle owners who feel that way.

Right because those of us that feel that way, don't buy Kindles.

I see Kindle purchases as a gamble on Amazon's good conduct, and I think it's a good gamble. The amount of leverage Kindle customers have over Amazon is phenomenal. I buy thousands of dollars of physical books and other merchandise through them every year. (By comparison, I don't spend more than $200 per year on Kindle books.) If they ever screwed me on my Kindle books, I would shop on Amazon, read the reviews, and then spend an extra five minutes per purchase finding somewhere else to order. I don't think I'm atypical for a Kindle customer, either in my high spending on Amazon or my willingness to go shop elsewhere. If they screw Kindle customers, they will pay for it dearly, and that's good enough for me.

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