Open Book Touch looks fantastic.
An #opensource #ereader with no DRM, no mandatory account, user-replaceable battery, microSD storage, hackable firmware, #openhardware .
We desperately need more devices that respect users instead of locking them into ecosystems.
I really hope this project succeeds
itsfoss.com/news/open-book-tou…
Open Book Touch is Crowdfunding: A Buttonless, Open Hardware Answer to Kindle
It's $149, runs on an ESP32-S3, and skips DRM entirely and lets you skip the Kindle ecosystem.Abhishek Prakash (It's FOSS)
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volkris
in reply to Andrea Callegaro • • •Never forget that a lot of users WANT the locked ecosystem, so it is respecting them.
We should all respect, or at least acknowledge, that many users want to be so taken care of, so they can focus on other things in life.
The walled gardens are safe, even if some of us want a different experience.
Andrea Callegaro
in reply to volkris • • •@volkris People are obviously free to prefer closed ecosystems for their convenience, but calling that “care” ignores that they are often designed to create dependency, lock users in and maximize profit.
My point is simply that genuine choice requires viable, well-designed open alternatives too.
volkris
in reply to Andrea Callegaro • • •It doesn't ignore that such systems are designed that way. In fact, the design is part of how they give those users what they want.
So many of us want an experience that's, to use a polite term, curated so they can spend their energies on other things. They WANT to be dependent for their experience because they don't want to spen the effort required for independence.
You may not be one of those, and I may not be one of those, but a TON of us find such walled gardens to be peaceful contributors to our happiness.
As for choice, there's ALWAYS the choice not to use it. We're not talking life support systems here.
Vole Maulder
in reply to Andrea Callegaro • • •volkris
in reply to Vole Maulder • • •@volemaulder
"Dependency isn't freedom, in my opinion."
Your opinion has been duly registered.
The thing to realize is that interoperability and openness often comes with costs ranging from technological to legal to general platform complexity. No sense allocating resources to support what their customer base isn't asking for instead of serving what they are wanting.
You and I wanting different things just aren't the group they're looking to serve.