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Comment by akmad | Hacker News Reader

I would LOVE to get a Kindle. I enjoy the user experience and the convenience of having all your books on a single small device would be amazing. That said, I am never going to pay even $100 for a device that locks me into buying books that I cannot loan to a friend or pass on to my kids. Not to mention that roughly 75% of the books I read I'll never read again. This usage pattern perfectly matches the free (excluding taxes) library system but is absolutely terrible for a device like the Kindle.

Until the Kindle adds the ability to get a temporary copy of book from a library (or other free service) and make it easy to transfer ownership of books (either for free or for payment) I won't even consider buying one.

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"... or pass on to my kids." and "... roughly 75% of the books I read I'll never read again." are mutually exclusive, no?

I read a lot of objections to the Kindle stating that you don't own the books. Personally I read a book once and I'm done with it (unless its a programming/reference book). I assume most people are the same way. So why hoard books if you're not going to read them?

The other thing is that "buying" a book for the Kindle is more akin to "renting" the book. You don't own it, Amazon does. You don't own a DVD you're renting from Blockbuster, or Netflix, but I don't hear people complaining about wasting that money.

I also think that if I'm going to read a book more than once, I'm going to buy a hardback version of it and keep it on my bookshelf. If not, then I'll buy/check-out a paperback book and donate/return it when I'm done reading it.

I think there are really two distinct kinds of books, and critics often confuse the two.

(I don't own a Kindle, but have given some thought to it and read up on people's objections)

""... or pass on to my kids." and "... roughly 75% of the books I read I'll never read again." are mutually exclusive, no?"

Not in the least. I may not want to read them again but still consider them worth passing on.

"..."buying" a book for the Kindle is more akin to "renting" the book"

This is exactly why I love libraries. I specifically want to own (outright, no string attached) books that I will want to read again or have some other retaining value. The Kindle gives me all the negatives of the library system (no ownership) with all the negatives of the commercial system (expensive, wasted money).

I wish the Kindle were more of a utility. Everyone buys one and it can be used to buy, loan, and trade books. Amazon would make money because the Kindle would be the TRUE iPod of the book world. However I'm not holding by breath for this to happen (at least with the Kindle); but I am hoping that someone else sees this opportunity and beats the Kindle into the ground.

> I read a lot of objections to the Kindle stating that you don't own the books. Personally I read a book once and I'm done with it (unless its a programming/reference book). I assume most people are the same way. So why hoard books if you're not going to read them?

I think that's a weird assumption. I read a book, maybe read it again in a year, maybe look at it sometime to remember some passage or some quote or some line of argument, and if it's any good, I'll almost always end up lending it to one or more friends. Many other people I know treat books similarly. I get equal or greater pleasure out of sharing good books as I do reading them myself, so not being able to do that really cuts down on the value of the book to me.

I'm also not sure it's a good profit model. I frequently buy multiple copies -- 2 or 3 -- of good books to give them to friends who I know will appreciate them but probably wouldn't have the money or inclination to track down a copy on their own, and presumably, those friends might be more inclined to investigate those authors in the future.

I'm not sure that Amazon wants us to think about the Kindle as "renting" books, because in America we have a huge, public-funded infrastructure of libraries dedicated to renting books for absolutely free; it's hard for the Kindle to compete with that. They usually (for most categories of books) have a better selection than the Kindle, too.

If you have multiple device, (in the same account), and when you buy a book, all those devices will receive it. So you are your kids can read them at the same time.

Get a family account and login with the kindles on that, so your kids will enjoy your books too. As for more advanced features, it is still a very early market, and features are coming one by one. Give it time.

Some books are limited to how many devices you can put them on.

And there's no way to tell before you buy the book.

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