So, how many ebook customers does Amazon have to trash before we figure out they do not care about the ebook customer, only the revenue opportunity that someone else may be getting. To expect Amazon to protect your library on its servers seems foolhardy in light of Amazon’s recent history.

It’s a safe bet that Amazon will start charging for access to WhisperNet once the Kindle gets a little more established. (Some can remember when basic cable TV was free, and would be “forever” – this is how they sold many communities on subsidizing the cabling.) Of course, if Kindle does not reach a proper level of profitability, the Kindle ebooks will go away when Amazon lays that generation of customers off. Amazon plays hardball with its customers, putting them way behind making quarterly numebrs for its stock. And if Amazon is successful, they will squeeze out cmpetition and people will end up with no choice but to pay monthly service bills and all sorts of unbundled costs to continue reading in an Amazon-controlled digital reading world.

It makes a lot more sense to rely on the smaller but reliable outfits who care about each customer and would never deliberately betray one good customer, let alone tens of thousands. BooksOnBoard, Fictionwise and eReader are among the honorable, truly customer-oriented ebook retailers out there. And BooksOnBoard and Fictionwise compete with Kindle pretty well on price across four proven formats, premised on a quick review tonight. There will also be several new devices released in the new year that will not be proprietary. These may be a big improvement on the Amazon Kindle.

Yeah, I want a reader with a decent screen, and the e ink sounds lovely. But that price tag? I said buh bye to the idea of it before I even looked at it. Granted, I did look at it out of curiosity, but I have no plans to buy one until that price drops. Drastically.

Check out the license agreement.

Information Received. The Device Software will provide Amazon with data about your Device and its interaction with the Service (such as available memory, up-time, log files and signal strength) and information related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device). Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in your Device are backed up through the Service. Information we receive is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice.

and

Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use

Next, there is something about annotations to investigate.