I'm one of the "voracious" readers that Charlie mentions and while I really like the Kindle DX hardware, I'm increasingly concerned at being tied into an Amazon ecosystem long term.
I have an atavistic attachment to paper books, [1] but even so, I have a Kindle that I use primarily for Instapaper and, more occasionally, for out-of-copyright books. I'm reluctant to buy DRM'ed books for the same reason you are, and for the same reasons Stross articulates: no one knows what the publishing / reading landscape is going to look like in two years, let alone five, but the paper books I bought when I was 12 still work quite nicely.
[1] http://jseliger.com/2012/02/16/amazon-com-daniel-kahneman-an...
I went with a Nook Touch instead of a Kindle, because it is very easy to get your hands on standard epub and load them at will. Loading e-books from outside the Amazon ecosystem can be done, but it is a cumbersome process at best. The Nook feels less tied to the B&N ecosystem than the Kindle is to Amazon. This is true for Sony and possibly Kobo as well, but I prefer the Nook as a device.
Cumbersome? I just select the epub in Calibre and press D. It could hardly be easier, in my opinion. Hell, the kindle doesn't even need to be plugged in...
I'm one of the "voracious" readers that Charlie mentions and while I really like the Kindle DX hardware, I'm increasingly concerned at being tied into an Amazon ecosystem long term.
Baen, O'Reilly , Pragmatic Programmers and Fictionwise are some of the places I look for new books for my Kindle before Amazon these days, as they have DRM free titles.