Amazon eBook reader due next month: why I won’t touch it

AmazonkindleMaybe I hold grudges too long, but since the Kindle eBook reader is coming from Amazon, I won’t touch it. Sure, the $400 to $500 device looks great with eInk. Yes, I think it’s wonderful that the device has a built in modem to puchase books on the fly, although I don’t know why it had to be an EV-DO modem; eBooks aren’t that big that you need a 3G connection to pull them down from the cloud. The problem I have is that Amazon burned me before; hopefully things are better this time around.

Before Amazon bought MobiPocket two years ago, they used to sell eBooks in various formats. I purchased a few in the DRM-protected Adobe format simply because the titles were only available in that format. I read the books on a Tablet PC and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Not too long ago, I wanted to re-read them so I went to my Amazon Digital Locker to pull them down again. Hmmm….not there. In fairness, I don’t expect Amazon or any other content provider to store my personal digital purchases forever, so I did have a backup on a portable hard drive.

I brought the content back to a different device because the old device is long gone, but I couldn’t unlock the content due to activation issues. The Adobe Reader software pointed me to Adobe, which in turn pointed me back to the origin of purchase. That’s a problem since Amazon no longer sells the content I purchased. I’ve found no practical way to unlock the content that Amazon sold me so my money is gone as is the ability to read the files that I have.

Now, I have to believe that due to the Kindle hardware as well as the ownership of MobiPocket, this won’t be an issue going forward. Perhaps this type of "friction" that Bob Russell was talking about is no longer there. I’m just not sure I want to invest $400 or more to find out. On the flipside, reading eBook content on my UMPC is still a risky prospect as well for the same reasons, even though it’s a great device for this type of activity. As much as I read (at least a book a week), I think I’ll sit on the fence a little longer to see how the Kindle shakes out.

Is anyone buying the Kindle when it hits the market? Have you lost access to content due to DRM or am I the only odd-man out?

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