Edit: Heck, just playing movies on my computer DVD drives was less than straight forward. For the longest time you basically had to feel like a hacker to get it working on a linux machine.

I'm not clear on the relevance to this particular story. For one, ebook practices are literally not part of this case. For two, the assertion in this branch is that that exists at the demands of publishers.

If Amazon was actually motivated to refuse DRM, then we would be in an entirely different situation. The reality is that the opposite is true, and that Amazon itself is one of the publishers requiring DRM!

My point is that that question was never asked: practically all of the publishers that sell on Amazon's marketplace - including Amazon Publishing - agree that they want DRM incorporated into Amazon's digital marketplace platform.

And you seem to be dodging my point? My assertion/wager/whatever is that the publishers actively want it so that Amazon has to have DRM on their devices and sales. Just as they want it on libraries lending. Do I /know/ this? No. That is why I worded it as something that would shock me.

I agree that my willingness to wager on this would go down as I extend it to my larger guess, that they also have terms covering things that Amazon publishes. That said, it lowers my willingness, but it does not seem beyond the pale.