I don't think consumers are totally unaware of it. (Edit: Meant to be in response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2564228 http://news.ycombinator.com/i

I don't think consumers are totally unaware of it. (Edit: Meant to be in response to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2564228 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2564228) I've had people (generally older, nontechnical types, but who aren't about to just trust that Amazon will be around forever) ask me whether it's possible to strip the DRM off of Amazon books. They may not know the term "DRM", but they understand it functionally and that it's a disadvantage. Unfortunately the de-DRMing tools are a little too complex and have too many rough edges for this audience, right now. (Although there's a Mac version that wraps most of the de-DRM scripts for Nook/Kindle/Adobe in a drag-and-drop GUI that is pretty clever.) I hope that developers of those sort of tools will keep ease-of-use by nontechnical people in mind in their development. Once you have the ability to strip the DRM and put the ebook file away in a safe place, you really have a product that is better in nearly all respects.