From an user perspective, those walled garden for ebooks are a real problem.
Since I like to have a paper copy of my books, I have a working solution, not perfect though:
* If there is a paper version, buy the paper version.
* If there is a DRM-free ebook, download it somewhere or buy it (depending on the price and added work, like a new cover, ...)
* If the is only DRM version, download a DRM-free version for free once it's available.
* If there is no paper version:
* If there is a DRM-free edition, buy it
* If there is only a DRM version, no good solution there, either a pass or a download somewhere.
My reader is a Kindle, so not perfect there, but I manage by keeping it in airplane mode at all time, to avoid stupid updates (like the 1984 fiasco), and by adding book only through Calibre instead of amazon's library manager.
My reader is a Kindle, so not perfect there, but I manage by keeping it in airplane mode at all time, to avoid stupid updates (like the 1984 fiasco), and by adding book only through Calibre instead of amazon's library manager.