The Brick Factor

This is something that you have to be careful about, now that many electronics are being sold with an electronic umbilical cord still attached to their manufacturer: The manufacturer could come to the conclusion that you should no longer be a customer, and suddenly you are in posession of a very expensive paperweight.

Look what happened when online bookseller Amazon decided that one of their customers (apparently because he returned too many items for a refund) was too much of a pain in the ass, and cancelled his account and banned him from future purchases as well.

As you may already know, Amazon's electronic reader, the Kindle (and newer Kindle 2) is linked to the owner's Amazon account where the inventory of purchased books is managed. In addition, although there are a few other sources, it is primarily the only way to buy books for the device. When this user's Amazon account was closed, he also lost access to all the books he had purchased, as well as the ability to shop for new material.

This situation brings the bigger picture of Digital Rights Management (DRM) to the forefront. When you purchase any form of media from a company, do they have the right to deny you access in the future (presuming it was not purchased on a subscription basis)? The above mentioned user ended up with a $360 device that was totally worthless to him. He couldn't even access books he had already paid for.

Your IPod, your Wii and Playstation, even your computer (via Windows)... they are all very similar to your cable box now (except that you shelled out hundreds of dollars to have them in your living room): Step out of line, and somebody back at headquarters might just flip a switch and you are out in the cold.