You can get PC software to read Kindle books if you want. I think there might be Mac software, but I’m not sure.

I think the Kindle is toast. It’s going the way of the Palm Pilot or the Newton, which were replaced by smart phones.

Why would anyone buy a proprietary single-purpose gadget to read a book, when you could buy a Netbook for the same price and it does 10 times as much?

If the publishers are serious about selling electronic books, they are going to have to format them for PCs and Macs.

http://www.proteacher.net/discussions/showpost.php?s=f782c391571b76a784a456037338e560&p=1117803&postcount=5

Anyway, there’s something wrong obviously with the way iTunes handles their DRM, but … well, there are always “other ways” to get music online.

I don’t care much for the Kindle. I think its overpriced and the books for it are over priced. Its a neat gizmo. Maybe things will go that way eventually but the book is hardly dead or close to it.

They might have changed it at some point though. As mentioned earlier, I typically only download obscure non-hits :)

In the Apple iTunes case, I think buying just that one song does make sense, but that’s a rarity. You don’t get an advantage of buying a chapter in a book or a scene in a movie.

Soo-Young, was it $0.30 per song, or for as many as you want to reload. If it’s just the 30 cents, that’s trivial. If costs you $30 to get 100 songs back, that’s kind of ridiculous.

Because you don’t have to buy the entire album. I can select a relatively obscure non-hit from an album and pay a buck for it, rather than paying $10-$15 for a CD.

I’m really not a fan of the Kindle, though. I guess maybe it might have a place in academic or technical setting where superseded information could be instantly replaced with a newer version. But for casual readers? What’s the point? There’s a high startup cost and you’re not really saving any money (paying more than I pay for gently used months-old handcovers in most cases).

Not to mention the fact that I prefer the interface of a book. After all, when’s the last time you had to stop reading a book because the battery died?

@ Michelle – Wasn’t it deliciously ironic that 1984 was one of the affected books? :)

I suggest folks look at investing in companies the produce the Kindle.

Recently on Consumerist there was an issue where people purchased a book, then amazon went in and removed it from the purchasers kindles, you can read about it here:

http://consumerist.com/5317209/amazon-deletes-your-books-has-always-been-at-war-with-eastasia

Whats to stop them from putting in built in time limits that will delete your music, books, programs, etc. How would you like to license your favorite song, only to have it disappear off your ipod because your rights have expired. Its coming. Believe me it is.

When you get a new phone, all those ringtones cannot be transferred to your new phone (who really pays $2.49 for a 20 second clip of a song?). Soon DVDS will be gone and you will down load movies with time limits. The days of owning music, movies, etc are going away with every bump in technology. I can’t say I like it.

I don’t believe consumers should steal artist’s music. But, I also don’t believe consumers should be forced to pay $17 for a CD with one good song on it. I also don’t believe artists should be forced into contracts that bind them for longer than allowed by anti-trust laws.

I see the RIAA as more of a problem than a solution to the issue of digital rights. Fortunately, technology has bypassed their
cozy little cartel and soon they will be dis-intermediated. Hopefully, they will be replaced by something that sends the lion’s share of profits from the consumers to the artists. Maybe, there should be a non-profit clearing house for payments and royalties.