Re:The Abomination of Ebooks: They Price People Out of Reading
by Nursie on Thursday October 03, 2013 @10:13AM
(#6488997)
>> Is there anything stopping her from just lending her Kindle?
Yes, a kindle is an expensive electronic device. The books are lent without any real expectation of getting them back, certainly without time limit. She receives from others, some books are returned, some passed on.
To effectively mimic that social pattern you would need one kindle per book, massively expensive (ebooks are seldom cheaper and the you have the device on top), environmentally unsound and just a really bad idea.
Kindle is "smart" enough not to let the same book be read on multiple devices, which mimics physical books (you can't read a book that is not in your physical possession). Kindles are cheap, too. After about a dozen books or so you might actually save money even with a loaner Kindle.
I'm not disagreeing with you regarding the absurdity of ebook DRM, though. If you don't feel Kindles are ethically defensible, don't recommend them. If it's a convenience thing however, the two Kindle scheme might work for your mother.