David’s Ramblings

I know I want a nice little netbook like the Yoga and an E-reader like the Skiff. The money is ready to jump out of my pocket.

But the brakes come on every time I read about this hot new gadget it is accompanied by some text like this… “the Skiff is optimized for newspaper and magazine content and will use Sprint’s 3G network to offer wireless connectivity…”

Why would I buy a device that milks me every month and ties me to some contract of adhesion with a large company that can brick my device at their whim? Think it can’t happen… remember what Amazon did to the Kindle users, reached out at night and snatched back their lawfully obtained and fully paid content*.

Why would I go from a book that I can own, lock up in my library, loan to a friend and read anytime I want to “content” from service that can dictate how I use it and change the terms of use while I sleep!

Similarly why would I buy a netbook where I have to subscribe to a “service provider” in order to use it to do what I want with it?

Seriously?

* And if you think they learned their lesson and won’t do it again read this. “Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.”

Read closely… and translate… the meaning is that we will delete and control your content in a different manner; it does not say we won’t ever do it.