Re: "users (Sheeple) are lapping up this connected IOT requiring external servers"
Just like I have blacklisted Amazon's Kindle because Amazon has the power to remove a book that customer's paid for without the customer's consent.
Not around here they don't. I have calibre, and some nice deDRM add-ons, one of which de-DRMs Kindle books. The first thing I do with a new download from Amazon (which doesn't happen often, I'll admit; I have 17 books in Kindle, but over 2000 in calibre, mostly courtesy of Project Gutenberg and similar free services) is to deDRM it and park it in calibre. Should Amazon yank the book from Kindle, I have a copy in calibre and they can't touch it. They don't even know it exists. My calibre library is parked on my server and is available to any device on the network, including my iPad. I have Marvin, a really nice ebook reader, on the iPad, and Marvin reads deDRMed Kindle files converted by calibre to epub format.
Apple's DRM is more difficult to remove than Amazon's, but calibre can do that, too. I have about 50 ebooks in Apple iBook format, mostly from publishers who don't push DRM (hello, Tor Books and Baen Books!) and they're set up in calibre, too, which means that I can use Marvin to read them. And it also means that I have multiple copies (iBooks/Kindle, calibre, Marvin) of books that I'm currently reading and Apple and Amazon can't touch the calibre or Marvin copies.
And, in any case, there's always Project Gutenberg. It's going to be a while before I run out of books from them.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
