It's there for me too, in the order of: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, then others. Odd how G+ isn't first.
13,512 karma · joined February 21, 2010
Because there's the example of the iPod. It wasn't the music player to have until Apple employees wore down Steve Jobs so they could let it connect with Windows.
iBookstore, Nookbook store, and Kobo -- the other three big players also have eBook DRM (via Adobe). Kindle is no "worse" than them.
1) That's in Shenzen. Might as well be Mars for most people. When Shenzen hardware is sourced by global brands, they usually have a generous markup where that "$30" quickly disappears.
2) How long do they last? "Oh, but they're cheap. If it breaks in 3 months, just buy another!" No. People just don't want to go through possibly losing data and having hardware just suddenly drop dead on them.
So, yeah. I'll go with the guy who said five years. That's for stuff that won't drop dead in three months.
And they reveal the hand they'll use to shut it all down.
You've missed the point. Something like a Scribd or Oyster subscription use an app and its own eBook format. The books are cached or streamed, not downloaded permanently. You are paying to read, not to own.
Here is someone who does not do his own food shopping. Food prices have exploded since 2008, when the house of cards first collapsed. I used to be able to buy 5 cans of store-brand chunk tuna for $3.00. Now the store brand is gone, replaced by a national brand, and it's $1.29 per can (up from $1.00 per can at the start of this year). And that's just the most egregious example from my own experience. Food packaging has also shrunk dramatically, another way prices actually rise while the "store price" remains almost the same.
I think they want to know you are where you say you are. You'll find if you travel out of the area -- particularly out of the entire country -- you won't have access to entertainment you had while at home due to these regional restrictions. Just think of the times when you've gone to the BBC website to view a video only to be told you can't have it outside of the UK (the BBC license area). (Note that I'm assuming you're in the US although your use of "postal code" likely means you aren't.)
When it comes to things such as entertainment, regional rights restrictions probably have more to do with that than the app wanting to spy on you. I'm not saying this is right. Just saying how the lawyers have sliced things into pieces like that.
In other words, get off the Internet. Do you recall a fracas from several years ago when several well-known (on the Net) people harassed Scoble's wife, Kathy Sierra, and some others? Kathy was basically driven off the Net. She's only recently come back to Twitter and now this happens.
And saying to Protect your account is like a punishment to the innocent. Unless Twitter has changed their TOS, it's a TOS violation to RT a Protected account.