Comment Re:too little, too late, too wrong... (Score 1) 280
I don't understand why this is so complicated for the businesspeople who are trying to develop eBooks to grasp. The strength of eBooks, are (primarily): The lack of size and weight restrictions on the library a person can take with them, and (for all practical purposes) instantaneous content delivery. That's it. Everything else about the experience is completely sub-par to dead-tree editions. Instead on simply capitalizing on those strengths, they expound the weaknesses by adding on these ridiculous usability restrictions. Really? The *last* thing I want to worry about if I have a book I want to share with somebody is whether or not I've shared it before, or who is "share-worthy" or... being the receiver, that there is now a ticking time-bomb attached to when I have to read this book. Seriously? Libraries lend books for longer than that; and I have books as both a lender and lendee that have been out for over 2 YEARS! What is going to happen is the lendee is going to tell the lender, "Oh, don't send it to me yet, I won't have time until after the holidays." ---Great, that throws the burden back on me, the lender, to get back with them in order to lend them a book that I've already read! What's far more likely is eBooks just won't get lent, full stop.
Things they should have focused on were the things that the technology makes possible, for example let me as the owner "pull back" my eBook from a lendee. Instead, they've just made more aggravation for me. Now, I didn't major in business, but I'm pretty sure there's a class called Don't_Annoy_Your_Customers_101 that's required for graduation. It's ironic but, everything Kindle has done has made the old paper editions look just that much more attractive. So, I'll keep buying them too.