From my e-mail bag:
I felt compelled to say something as a followup to your recent article on “lock-in†in digital book collections.
I want to comment on a way that sidesteps the whole idea of lock-in. One physical E Ink Kindle or Nook is rapidly descending to the sub-$100 threshold. This makes it possible to own both physical devices without excessive expenditure. Since such a pair, when stacked one upon another, remains lighter, more compact and more capacious than most hard back books, the physical effort of owning or traveling with two is negligible and therefore more convenient per gram or cubic millimeter than lugging around the organic original.
My recommendation is to diversify our c ollections and investments.
My reply:
Well, I'm not totally convinced. You're suggesting, I think, that each consumer buy three e-book readers, one from each of the major manufacturers?
And travel with all of them? And keep them all charged? And try to remember which device contains which books?
It really doesn't sound practical to me. It's like suggesting that everyone buy three DVD players, each capable of playing only some discs.
No, I still think that the solution is to make the ebooks mutually compatibleâ€"to compete on quality of the site, price, and customer friendliness, not proprietary file formats!
