There's a bit of an internet fuss over Amazon disabling the option to download books to a computer. It's a bit of a legacy feature for Kindles that don't have ready access to the internet, so there needed to be a way to manually transfer files via USB. I don't quite get why people are being panicky over it - I highly doubt the average Kindle user takes the time to download books for the express purpose of stripping these book files of DRM protection and then storing them somewhere indefinitely. There are weird video headlines that are raising the alarm that people don't own their digital books...but this isn't new. That's exactly what DRM means and most ebooks sold across different marketplaces have DRM in place at the publisher's request.
I've long accepted the inherent trade one makes when buying digital content (past blog posts: 1, 2, 3). You're paying for convenience more than anything else while still trying to compensate the author for their work, albeit through the still-archaic publisher system. I'm pretty sure I fit the bit of the average Kinde user who just works with Whispersync keeping my book files set to the same page regardless of where I read (i.e. web reader, mobile app, or Kindle) and lets Amazon automatically queue any new book purchases for download.
I did try to give more of a shit about DRM-free content back when comiXology was still a thing. But man, it takes a LOT of effort to download and backup even my DRM-free comics, which only constituted a smaller portion of my larger digital comic book collection. I'm sure some of my Kindle books are also DRM-free, but I've never bothered to back them up because...I'm probably going to read them on my Kindle.
Yes, I understand the risks - Amazon is now my literary ride-or-die since my digital book and comic book collections are all under their purview. But that's not a surprise - I knew that the first time I made a digital book purchase and have acknowledged this reality time and time again. And while DRM isn't the best thing in the world, I still feel that things like DRM and streaming services might help prepare us for a future where media of all forms is no longer "owned" but just freely shared. But of course, this is overly utopian of me as it's more along the lines of the Star Trek Federation model of knowledge sharing. Having access to these titles still feels a lot better than not being able to get my hands on particular works because of a lack of global distribution.
We love to complain about the constraints of living in a capitalist society and all the problems it creates. But we also can't let go of things like ownership, which is a fair caveat. There's no clear path for what comes next - maybe we really do need replicator technology to move towards that post-scarcity future that defines the Star Trek universe or whatever. We're definitely not there yet, but maybe we'll get there eventually.
In the meantime, I'm still going to read on my Kindle because I've "purchased" too many digital titles that I probably have a digital reading backlog that will outlive me.
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