People need to talk with their wallet to get the message across.
There is nothing stopping people from buying a 'dumb' e-reader with internal storage where you load epub/pdf/rtf/txt files that you actually own or borrow from a library.
There is nothing stopping people from buying a 'dumb' e-reader with internal storage where you load epub/pdf/rtf/txt files that you actually own or borrow from a library.
There is a reason that Kindle prevail, and it's not because of some conspiracy or a giant company. It's because it's easy, basically like going to Chapters or Barnes and Noble and walking out with a book. There is no similar avenue for "dumb" e-readers. They need to know several levels of skills to get it and it's a lot more difficult then clicking "Buy" and start reading.
Can you point to any amazon docs explaining this? I was under the impression that this was the big caveat restriction with amazon.
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Another cool thing is Calibre recognizes the Kindle. :)
Yes, all Kindles.
The remaining annoyance is that besides PDFs and a few other document file formats, the Kindles don't read standard EPUB format ebooks, only .mobi or .azw ebooks.
That was kinda sorta okay when the Kindle first came out (Amazon got .mobi through their acquisition of Mobipocket, and .azw is mostly the same format), as at the time practically every e-reader device had it's own proprietary format, but since then everyone has converged on the EPUB standard with Amazon the lone holdout.
Thankfully, Calibre can automatically convert ebooks of whatever format to .mobi when transferring from your library to a Kindle.
In cases like this where there's a huge imbalance in power and technical knowledge between suppliers and users, I think it's perfectly reasonable for the government to legislate on the behalf of it's constituents to protect their interests.
I think at this point it's been clearly demonstrated that DRM is simply not necessary to protect functioning markets in digital goods. Apple showed this with iTunes, arguing forcefully for DRM free music downloads. I'm a gamer and there's a very vibrant and successful market in DRM free PDFs in the tabletop gaming industry. I'm no extremist, I don't object to all DRM in every case, but I think arbitrary lockouts like this are clearly wrong, and a right to DRM free copies of material you have bought if a service expires or closes is perfectly fair.
AFAIK Most 'non-kindle' e-readers (even those with an online store), will still operate as a mass storage device if you connect them via USB to another machine.
Do people still have limited data plans in 2020?