The asymmetry between digital music and eBooks. Why is it still possible to buy CDs and MP3s without DRM, but the same for an eBook is so unimaginable? The market for piracy and other means was never bigger than it was for music, yet the iPod and music streaming services conclusively proved that people will comfortably choose convenience over other means, if it’s both available and frictionless.
Given the above observation, why is it that eBooks are so different? Publishers don’t run around tracking the physical copies of their books to ensure you haven’t loaned one to a friend. Of course, there is an asymmetry in that analogy when applied to eBooks, in that they can be easily duplicated. But putting that aside for a moment, why are we so content to not own our digital books anymore, and so quick to hand over this otherwise fundamental right?
Fortunately, this doesn’t happen very often, but it’s still a valid concern. Not owning your eBook purchases means that when you later want to re-read something, you could find that the book doesn’t exist anymore for some reason. Maybe the publisher withdrew the book from that platform, or it’s been deemed too controversial and is no longer allowed to be sold. Or, as has actually happened in recent years, books and movies have been updated or removed to appease changing cultural or corporate policies. If you don’t own the eBook and have a private local copy of it, then you could be a victim of this situation and otherwise have no recourse available to you.
If we look at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Thalia, eBooks.com, and others, are any of them going out of business? Are they suffering from all the rampant piracy? Have people stopped buying digital books from them? The answer is no; they’re as profitable as ever by almost every account. So why treat your customers like dishonest thieves? Why work so hard to create an adversarial relationship of distrust and contempt with your customers?
I’ve been a long-time Kindle user, and was quick to buy the second-gen Kindle the moment it became available to me in Australia. I’d have bought the first-gen model, but that didn’t get a release in Australia, and grey-importing it was a bit sketchy, as purchasing books and getting them onto your device wasn’t so straightforward at the time.
For almost as long as I can remember, you were able to purchase your eBooks and then download a copy of the book—think of it like a backup. And for the longest time, it was always possible to use some third-party software to remove the DRM so you could read the eBook on other hardware besides your specific Kindle. Think a phone with KOReader, or your laptop with Calibre, etc.
Then, at some point, Amazon started playing this adversarial game of whack-a-mole to patch and thwart the ability to obtain the eBooks from your own device, and also to further hinder stripping the DRM from them. Eventually, in February 2025, they completely removed the ability to download your eBook files through their website, which you had always been able to do up to that point.
For me, this was the last straw, and what prompted me, after almost 15 years, to finally leave the Kindle ecosystem.