Epeus' epigone

When I buy a physical book from Amazon, they helpfully offer to sell it second-hand for me:

For Kindle editions, there is no First Sale Doctrine, and no physical book for me to resell, but they can make it go away and give me a refund. So how about Amazon learns from its newly-acquired Zappos's 365 day return policy and lets Kindle users return books they don't want? That could justify keeping the remote deletion feature on the Kindle.

I had some hopes for Amazon's e-book device - after all I buy paper books from Bezos via Amazon Prime weekly, I buy Subterranean Press's splendid editions, and I even end up susbcribing to the Folio Society's offers each year. I spend 8-12 hours a day reading screens and 1-4 reading paper books; I should be right in their target market. So I'm really sorry that KIndle is doomed.

I'll keep this short. Kindle requires DRM. DRM destroys value - it makes things do less and cost more, and means they will break suddenly without warning when the service inevitably goes bust.

If you have $400 to spend on a small gadget to read outdoors on, buy yourself an OLPC and give one away to a child elsewhere too. If you are still tempted by the Kindle swindle, read Mark Pilgrim's literary dismissal of it.