I think it’s worth noting that the bigger issue here might not be the drm, but the access Amazon has into your device. Regardless if you can download ‘another’ version of the book or not (that is something you can find out for yourself relatively quickly) there is no reason it should be considered ok for the company to insist that it can connect to a device you own and modify the contents of it. Even with ownership of the books being a topic, certainly there should be little questions of whether you own the device, and along with that being able to control access to it.

Surely there is something in the user agreement that states accessing the download functionality also grants Amazon permission to go in and claw back things they’ve uploaded to the device, but i think that should be at least half the argument. Restrict whatever they want up front, I’ve downloaded it to my device and they consider that a fair exchange for my money, but to then say they screwed up on their end so they’re taking it back (assumedly without giving up the money they made as part of the agreement) is where things should be breaking.

That’s kind of my point though, nothing is every really designed for the food of humanity, we evolved in an environment and adapt or die. It may seem hopeless while we’re living through it, and it may be ‘different’ than the past, but it’s always different, from the wheel to agriculture to the printing press to mass production, things are always taken advantage of by those with the means to do so, and we always come out different in the other side, were just living through this one and everyone feels special in the time they’re living through. Just imagine the days of the printing press and how powerful those who owned the press would appear.

Right, but things rarely happen ‘for the good of humanity’, they just happen, and like mass production or the newspaper or even writing and language itself, it appears, we make use of it, we stumble and eventually we figure out where it really fits into the world. It will always be taken advantage of by those with the means to do so, but my point is that there is a period where we truly don’t know how to approach it as a society and there is a learning curve and we are in that adolescent or teenage year type curve for the Internet, and probably toddler stage for ai, and we will learn, but we’re not there yet.

Further, whether we learn enough quickly enough, or whether those with enough power and foresight will truly steal that opportunity from society remains to be seen. It may seem like it will be obvious right now, while we’re in the thick of things, but only history will tell if it’s an obvious eventuality or whether it is comical that they think they are smart enough to actually control it. Maybe it contains the seeds of their own undoing.

I still consider us in something like the teenage years as a society, just discovery something big like the Internet and social media and we’re going to handle it poorly until we learn to handle it responsibly.

Heads or tails whether we make it to adulthood before the powers that be manage to wrangle things in their favor first. Signs point in a bad direction, but there’s no saying that the tools that worked on society before won’t break when the next thing comes along. Maybe ai will take a form that liberates, or hits the powerful far more negatively than it hits the masses.