IMO, that's punishing the entirety of their customer base for the sins of a few. I find that insulting.
As a hypothetical only (not getting into politics): if a State decided to take away the right of all Senior Citizens to drive
Wait. Stop right there. Analogy fail.
Senior citizens have a right to certain personal freedoms.
You don't have a "right" to have a book in pdf format.
Your argument only holds if you feel you are somehow entitled to have the product you want, in the exact format you want. Your rights are in no way curtailed by them not providing pdfs. Meanwhile the company does have a right - a real, legal right - to decide how to manage their products.
Now, when we are young, our parents may withhold something we want (like, TV time or videogame time) as punishments. But we aren't kids any more - shouldn't we recognize now that sometimes we can't get exactly what we want?
Which is not to say that you can't choose not to buy until they fulfill some certain criteria - even completely arbitrary criteria. It is your money, that's your call.
As for their reasons - I understand the argument that restricting sales of pdfs does not actually curtail piracy. However, what *I* understand is irrelevant. If we assume that that was the truth, and the whole of the decision*, and that they were honestly trying to act in the interests of the business and the brand. Basically, you are saying you are insulted by someone else honestly trying to do their job properly.
People make mistakes. Waiters spill coffee on us, paperwork gets lost, business decisions that don't really reflect reality as we understand it get made. That's not a good reason to feel insulted, is it?
*I don't make that assumption. I actually think there's much more to it than piracy. However, I don't believe we are entitled to their reasoning, either.