[LINK] Reprise: 'The New Dark Ages'

[Roger Clarke]

[Drawn to attention by Colin Steele]

Why e-books will soon be obsolete (and no, it's not just because of DRM)
Jani Patokallio
Gyrovague
vaguely heretical musings on travel and technology
April 30, 2012
http://gyrovague.com/2012/04/30/why-e-books-will-soon-be-obsolete-and-no-its-not-just-because-of-drm/

...

Last year, I bought a laptop in Singapore, and brought it with me to 
Australia.  It worked fine for reading the Economist online and what 
passes for journalism in Singapore, but one day I searched for the 
Sydney Morning Herald, and there were no hits: it's as if it didn't 
exist.  A little poking around revealed that to be able to view 
Australian sites, I had to register my browser to be in Australia, 
which also requires a credit card with a billing address there. 
What's more, switching countries like this would delete all my 
bookmarks, terminate my paid subscription to the Economist and stop 
me from being able to read even single i ssue of the Singaporean 
Straits Jacket.  And n! eedless to say, the laptop is locked to 
prevent me from installing another browser that would allow me to get 
around these limits.

Does this sound ridiculous, a perverse fantasy of some balkanized Web 
of the dystopian future?  Nope: it's all true, except that my 
"laptop" is actually an iPad and my "browser" is iTunes/iBooks.

...

-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/
			            
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
                    Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/

Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University