DRM allegedly is meant to stop distribution of unlicensed copies. Quite novel. However, from what I can observe, usually they seem easy to remove or circumvent, and its main use seems to be to stop legitimate users from using a given product.
For things like music, games and movies, as a response to this, I see hints of interest of going back to physical medias, as back when this type of media was mainstream, DRM, if present, was usually a local nuisance, and not a remote killswitch.
Besides being able to own the physical media, including being able to back them up (including scanning for books and the sort), the experience of using them can be quite nice too.
But something I don’t spot quite as frequently is mentions of DRM-free medias distributed purely digitally. And if one is to “vote with the wallet” to try to push for better market practices, or even for ease of backing up or accessibility, I’d propose recommending those too.
Physical media is expensive to ship, harder to store, you can’t carry around a rental store-worth of physical medias in your backpack, and due to distribution bottlenecks and licenses, the company can’t produce as many copies, making it less accessible. And from what I can observe, people usually prefer contents to be easier to access, adding to the problem.
With digital, those things are dealt with, at worse requiring the user to double-click some file. And if/as DRM-free gets more trending, lack of killswitches starts to be normalized again among those that usually prefer the double-click.
So going back to the point, while there’s value in physical medias, I think digital DRM-free may be better to promote, be it by purchasing or recommending, to try to push the market in a better direction.
What do you think?
Independent e-readers (or at least more independent than Amazon): https://itsfoss.com/open-source-ebook-readers-options/
I’m a clumsy person, but also weirdly high-maintenance. I will absolutely papercut myself on a physical book, or spill water on it and feel bad when the pages are deformed, or notice wear and tear and feel bad. Part of why I really prefer digital is because it’s a lot harder for me to hurt myself, my minor spills can just be wiped off, and for some reason I do not notice tech wear and tear nearly as much. I also like the portability of digital books. Goes everywhere my phone goes, no awkwardness about carrying a book. I’m one of the people who really really wants to abandon physical media forever, personally. Less things collecting dust, less things to be super careful around that I cannot even get a single drop of water on. But not everyone is me, where digital helps me evade all my pain points with physical, and where I do personally not feel any digital pain points. I think both options should be available to people; but if I had to pick one of course I’ll go with the one I feel serves my needs best.
Thanks for your long response, fun to read!
I can’t help you in regards to clumsiness (be assured we share a few similarities in that domain ;)
But I know I trust paper a lot more than anything digital in regards to sturdiness and longevity. A car can roll over a book or my notebook and I will still be able to use it. It can even rain on it, it may buckle but that’s no big deal to read its page, including my notebook (as ball pens use non water-soluble ink and pencil is waterproof too). Sure fire_can_ burn a book (depends the intensity of the fire and that fabrication of the book, and its paper) but, at teh same time, I’m reading centuries old books whereas I can’t access (or only going through many hoops) a few decades old files or use a twenty year o ld computer.
It’s also much cheaper to replace a destroyed/stolen book/notebook than any digital device.
And like I said, I value privacy a lot more than not collecting dust ;)
100% agreed.
My pleasure.
The 20-year-old computer might not work but I still have its files good as new because of backups and migrations for me.
Also I just like being able to search for stuff digitally. I misplace physical things very easily even if I do try to have a home for everything, so reducing down to one digital item for reading instead of many books is very helpful for me.
The advantages of paper you cite probably hold water for lots of people, but for me the way digital just erodes all of the problems I would have with physical books makes that the way for me, as I am sure you feel the pros of physical outweigh the cons for you.
I do wonder how popular our respective preferences (physical vs digital copies) are when you restrict to people concerned with privacy.