D&D Insider: Losing your toys

[Tetsubo]

Do you rent or own your place or residence? Do you own or lease your car? (or did you take out a loan for it?) In these cases, you don't own the thing you pay money for, but it is still yours to use.

And the Kindle II is just so sweet, how can it be such a failure?? The dang thing can store about 1500 titles on it! I don't think I could read that many in 20 years, and in that time, they will be selling the Kindle IX with audible-holo-type.

Anyway, my point is that we rent stuff all the time in our lives and this is such a reasonably priced item that it's not really worth getting worked up about.

And, as others have said, you're just "renting" the data. Oh, and the correct term is "subscribing".

Can I loan or resell the books on my Kindle? What happens if I drop my Kindle? A Kindle is *much* more likely to be stolen over a book. What happens if the Kindle format goes out of style?

I can loan or resell my books forever. If I drop one I dust it off and move on. I've never had a book stolen. Books as we know them have exists for centuries.

In addition the Kindle itself is expensive. I rarely pay more than $3 for a book. I can also read a book without electricity any time the sun is out.

The Kindle is simply a device that does not suit my life. Books are physical things.

 

[Asmor]

The Kindle is simply a device that does not suit my life. Books are physical things.

Then you should be quite happy to know that you are not forced to buy the Kindle, nor will books stop being published in dead tree format in your lifetime. In fact, I'd feel quite confident wagering my life's savings that most people on Earth will never own one, and will be no worse for the lack. Much like the DDI, the Kindle is a product for people who want a product like the Kindle.

On the topic of owning what you pay for... Has anyone here ever tipped a waitress? What product was that tip for? For that matter, what did the cost of your food buy you? Certainly, some small portion of the bill went into the raw materials used to fabricate your food (which, incidentally, you will only own temporarily... ), but the lion's share of that money went to pay for the restaurant's rent, the cook's services in preparing the food, the waitress's services in bring the food to you, the busboy's services in cleaning the table after you leave, etc. Ever gone to a mechanic? You have to pay for parts and labor. Ever had a checkup from a doctor? Even if all he did was take your temperature, I'm sure you (or at least your insurance company) payed a fair amount.

Is anyone here a member of AAA? Or does anyone here subscribe to HBO? Do you take issue with the fact that if you let your AAA membership lapse, you can't have them send a tow truck for you? Does it incense you that if you record episodes of the Sex & the City on tape and then watch them so much that the tapes are no longer viewable, HBO is under no obligation to let you tape the episodes again? Or what if you recorded them to your computer, and then your hard disk died and your backups were broken or non-existent?

 

[Tetsubo]

Then you should be quite happy to know that you are not forced to buy the Kindle, nor will books stop being published in dead tree format in your lifetime. In fact, I'd feel quite confident wagering my life's savings that most people on Earth will never own one, and will be no worse for the lack. Much like the DDI, the Kindle is a product for people who want a product like the Kindle.

On the topic of owning what you pay for... Has anyone here ever tipped a waitress? What product was that tip for? For that matter, what did the cost of your food buy you? Certainly, some small portion of the bill went into the raw materials used to fabricate your food (which, incidentally, you will only own temporarily... ), but the lion's share of that money went to pay for the restaurant's rent, the cook's services in preparing the food, the waitress's services in bring the food to you, the busboy's services in cleaning the table after you leave, etc. Ever gone to a mechanic? You have to pay for parts and labor. Ever had a checkup from a doctor? Even if all he did was take your temperature, I'm sure you (or at least your insurance company) payed a fair amount.

Is anyone here a member of AAA? Or does anyone here subscribe to HBO? Do you take issue with the fact that if you let your AAA membership lapse, you can't have them send a tow truck for you? Does it incense you that if you record episodes of the Sex & the City on tape and then watch them so much that the tapes are no longer viewable, HBO is under no obligation to let you tape the episodes again? Or what if you recorded them to your computer, and then your hard disk died and your backups were broken or non-existent?

I tip a server because of their performance at their assigned task.

I have a AAA membership as a form of insurance. They gamble I won't need their services, I gamble that I will.

HBO provides an entertainment service on a monthly basis. If they sold DVDs that ceased to work after a month (DIVX debacle) you would have a point.

I don't want to 'rent' a book. I don't mind borrowing one. But my 'too read' pile is 300+ books at the moment.

The Kindle sets a precedent that I don't like, that I don't own what I pay for. It isn't a monthly service, it isn't a task, it isn't a form of insurance. It is a book.

 

[IanArgent]

I don't see the Character Builder as software in that sense. As I dais earlier, the software is free (the demo client). What I'm paying for is up-to-date access to the database; essentially a specialized interface to the Compendium. Looking at it like that, it doesn't bother me that I might lose access to the database if I stop paying (though WotC is nice enough to let me use my backups even if I do stop paying).

I buy my e-books from Baen's Webscriptions because I won't pay for account-locked DRM books that I cannot unlock. I have, I think, 4 books with account-locked DRM, and I can't currently activate any machine I own to read them. (I got them free when Microsoft was running a giveaway to promote MS reader one summer). If the PDFs were account-locked, I wouldn't buy them. Since they are merely watermarked, I'm OK with that.

 

[Mercutio01]

Can I loan or resell the books on my Kindle?

That depends entirely on the format of the book. Kindle can display pdf. If you buy a non-DRM PDF, you can loan or resell that if you want.

What happens if the Kindle format goes out of style?

It can read dozens of formats, not just the native azw. PDF isn't going anywhere for quite awhile.

Books as we know them have exists for centuries.

Sure, the older books did. I have not faith that my copies of The Dark Elf trilogy will survive half as long as the scrolls of Sappho.

I rarely pay more than $3 for a book.

I'd like to know where you shop. I can't even buy a new 28-page chapbook of poetry for $3.

Books are physical things.

That's actually up in the air even in the publishing industry. The modern interpretation is of a book as a medium, a paperbound version of an idea. Writers sell books, sure, but those books have to say something, and that's where the definition breaks down. Surely Neil Gaiman books are not F. Scott Fitzgerald books, but they are made of the same materials, flip the same, feel the same. It's the message within the books that is different, and that's where digital media versions of "books" is changing the idea of what is a book.

The Kindle sets a precedent that I don't like, that I don't own what I pay for. It isn't a monthly service, it isn't a task, it isn't a form of insurance. It is a book.

Where do you get that idea? You don't pay a monthly fee. It's not a rental service. You pay for a digital book and you own it. Plain and simple. I can understand if you have a problem with the DRM inherent in the azw format. That's where the argument with regard to mp3s comes down, and it's similar here. The problem with the digital format and "reselling" is that when you sell a hardcopy book, it leaves your possession. There is only ever 1 copy of that book and it actually changes ownership. The DRM is put in place to essentially mimic that. Without it, you could resell the e-book to as many people as many times as you want.

 

[Starfox]

I dunno. I really, really don't like that kind of loss of control of my software and data. I don't rent CS3 or MS Office...

Expect to in the future. Software houses would really love to move over to this model. I guess the only thing stopping them is your (and many others') poor reaction to the idea.

 

[IanArgent]

From that point of view, I've been "renting" software for year; both for my Antivirus software (where, again, I'm paying for database access - the updated files), and also for my ObjectDesktop subscription. (Well worth it, IMHO). In that model, I pay a fairly nominal cost per year, and I get every upgrade that they put out during that year, plus some bennies for being a subscriber. If I let my subscription lapse, I still get to keep the software I've downloaded; but can't get updates.

Heck, my copy of Armybuilder is technically rentable - but I never paid the fee to keep my copy up to date. I lost the ability to auto-download army definition files (no big loss). I'm going to get to find out what happens when I try and deactivate my 2 old machines and activate the 2 new ones I just ordered.

To a certain extent I wish MS would make the option to "rent" office available on the same terms as Stardock makes an ObjectDesktop subscription available - then I could get the current version of Office at a reasonable price.

 

[Mercutio01]

Expect to in the future. Software houses would really love to move over to this model. I guess the only thing stopping them is your (and many others') poor reaction to the idea.

That's not stopping them either. Based on the success of things like Google Office (and Google in general really), many big companies, to include Microsoft, are looking at cloud-computing as not just a theory, but an inevitability. The subscription model looks to be the new standard, and will, within my lifetime (I suspect) become the dominant model of product "ownership."

 

[Tetsubo]

I'd like to know where you shop. I can't even buy a new 28-page chapbook of poetry for $3.

I shop at thrift stores a great deal. Also flea markets and yard sales. There is a local used book store near me that has thousands of books in the $3 price range. In addition my grocery store takes in donated books and sells them to earn money for charity, at a $1 each. And lastly my city library has sales at least twice a year where you can buy a grocery bag of books for $10.

My problem is finding too many books.

I should note that I buy non-fiction books exclusively. I no longer read fiction.

The only full price books I buy any longer are gaming books. And I can often find those at a discount if I look hard enough or wait a few months after a release.

I have gotten better at not keeping all the books I read. At this point I probably only keep 10 - 20% of what I read. The rest are donated to charity or given to people I know. I live in a two bedroom apartment. My wife and I have twenty book shelves. Some 60' of that storage space is dedicated to RPG books.

 

[Asmor]

That's not stopping them either. Based on the success of things like Google Office (and Google in general really), many big companies, to include Microsoft, are looking at cloud-computing as not just a theory, but an inevitability. The subscription model looks to be the new standard, and will, within my lifetime (I suspect) become the dominant model of product "ownership."

Personally, I'm holding out hope that a modified version of that becomes dominant... I'd like to see a situation where every person/family has a master server in their home which retains their data and provides their applications, and is accessed by a variety of terminals (such as tablets and full-sized monitor/keyboard setups).

Despite the fact that I use Google Docs a lot, I'm really not comfortable with the idea of that becoming the dominant form of computing. In particular, if I were not a student but worked at a real business, I wouldn't use Google Docs because then I'm trusting them to secure my data...