My Kindle and I have a personal relationship. Sure, I really resent paying for content that I cannot share. True, I can get the same content on my smart phone. Yes, check out my PC when I am on the road and my Kindle got kidnapped by my husband (he gets his own for Father's Day). If I recommend a book I am reading on the Kindle, he hovers until I am done, waiting like a book vulture until he gets/takes his turn. I occasionally will finish a book on my phone so that he can start something on the Kindle--do not tell this to Amazon.
Of course, there is free content. Project Gutenberg's time has come! What they have been salvaging for the public for decades has now moved into the public forum and it isn't just librarians who know about it anymore. However, I have spent many hours searching through their catalog and found some fairly unfriendly looking texts--obvious formatting problems.... None the less, Gutenberg is free to the public and saving our resources from extinction by maintaining them in a digital format.
Legal issues lend a foreboding overtone to collectors of eBooks. As I illustrated from personal experience, it is difficult to share content. Moreover, one publisher has recently put libraries on notice that eBook purchases will expire after a certain number of checkouts, supposedly reflecting a similar demise that occurs with print and digital on-ground materials. Considering that the purchaser or borrow must bring his own container to the well of knowledge, there is a certain outrage on behalf of libraries.
Every delivery system of intellectual property has always been transient. Parchment deteriorated and was hard to come by. Mold corrupts print, heat warps wax, vinyl, and plastics, needles scratch away sound.... eBook delivery will change too, giving way to other media. At that time, the eBook and audio delivery of the moment will change and publishers can recharge for content with the new media. This is a time to be wary, to protect user rights and to encourage access.
All that said, I am reminded of the power of the access we have to such amazing public domain works as Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal digitized and copywritten for presentation to the public through the British Library. It could be sitting on the shelves of a very few academic or museum libraries...unavailable, even unknown, to the general public. Who knew that Jane Austen created her own History of England--and viewed in her own handwriting?
The advertising on Read.Print is a bit overwhelming. I think this is the point where reading online becomes unlikely, at least for me. Interacting with the text is a very personal, inverted sort of exercise. When icons, advertising, and formatting become so obvious, for obvious reasons, that they detract from the contextual interaction, the reaction is negative. Profit is the motive for this site--fortunately, no one needs to go here.
Some of these resources offered audio as well as print. At my house, we love audio books and I have found apps for my droid phone, computer, and, now, Kindle. The quality of Kindle audio has been poor--digitized and hard to listen to. So, imagine my pleasure in finding Audible--and then going to eHow to discover that I can download AudibleManager software to my computer, download the audiobook(s), then transfer to the Kindle. It will be my next Kindle adventure.
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