Re: discontinuation of the Microsoft Reader

> discontinuation of the Microsoft Reader
> Posted by: "auwg" auwg-/[email protected]   auwg

> Users can continue to use the Microsoft Reader application and their .lit eBooks after full discontinuation on August 30, 2012. 

Well, that's very big of them, I must say, and I'm sure that this generous concession will lift a weight of anxiety from the shoulders of Microsoft Reader users.

> Will this discontinuation have any particular impact?

Only on anyone foolish enough to have paid money for eBooks in .lit format. 

Candor compels me to say this does not include me. No, not me. Silly me, it was GemStar eBook format that _I_ purchased hundreds of dollars worth of books in. My books only lasted until 2003 before the publisher chose to vaporize them back into the bits from whence they came.

I don't think some publishers get it. 

Up till now, permanency has always been one of the attributes of a "book." "Books" are not supposed to be disposable. That's what magazines are for. There's a reason why we have a different word, "ephemera," for printed matter that isn't intended to last. It is certainly _convenient_ if publishers can redefine the word "books" to mean "ephemera," but they should understand why this angers anyone who knows what the word has meant for the last five hundred years.

Thank you, MIcrosoft, for a lesson on the durability of eBooks and the reliability of eBook providers.


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