> I read a lot of objections to the Kindle stating that you don't own the books. Personally I read a book once and I'm done with it (unless its a programming/re

> I read a lot of objections to the Kindle stating that you don't own the books. Personally I read a book once and I'm done with it (unless its a programming/reference book). I assume most people are the same way. So why hoard books if you're not going to read them? I think that's a weird assumption. I read a book, maybe read it again in a year, maybe look at it sometime to remember some passage or some quote or some line of argument, and if it's any good, I'll almost always end up lending it to one or more friends. Many other people I know treat books similarly. I get equal or greater pleasure out of sharing good books as I do reading them myself, so not being able to do that really cuts down on the value of the book to me. I'm also not sure it's a good profit model. I frequently buy multiple copies -- 2 or 3 -- of good books to give them to friends who I know will appreciate them but probably wouldn't have the money or inclination to track down a copy on their own, and presumably, those friends might be more inclined to investigate those authors in the future. I'm not sure that Amazon wants us to think about the Kindle as "renting" books, because in America we have a huge, public-funded infrastructure of libraries dedicated to renting books for absolutely free; it's hard for the Kindle to compete with that. They usually (for most categories of books) have a better selection than the Kindle, too.