Amazon just released the latest in a long line of DOA portable media devices, a backwards-looking e-book device. At My Eyes Glaze Over, Dan Sinker does a great job of breaking down the essential futility of closed-systems such as Kindle, and what content creators still don’t get.
The content that you can get for this allegedly ‘revolutionary’ device is DRM’d up the wazoo — and that includes popular blogs that Amazon will generously allow you to subscribe to on the Kindle — for a fee. Whatever genius at Amazon’s product development came up with the idea that people would pay to have a DRM’d version of Boing Boing sent to their Kindle doesn’t have any right working in the media or technology industries ever again (also, speaking of Boing Boing, what’s up with Doctorow aligning with a DRM product, BTW?)
The more I see this sort of thing, the more I’m convinced that the content businesses are going to keep fighting against the inevitable until it suffocates them. The continued pervasiveness of these ridiculous closed-system initiatives (that didn’t work the last five times they were attempted) just proves to me that none of these content folks are nearly agile enough to keep up. Of course, maybe the content industries can successfully lobby for the federal government to subsidize their zero-sum game.
Good luck with that, folks. If the two-star Amazon user review the Kindle had earlier in the day is any indication, this device is gonna brick. Meanwhile, I’ll read my RSS feeds for free on my laptop, my office computer, and the Ipod Touch I plan on buying by the end of the year, and continue to enjoy my tactile, beautifully designed, infinitely portable and no-batteries-required print books and magazines for those times when I’m sick of looking at the glare of text on a screen .
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