Not that I’m saying, David, that you’re being alarmist about Adobe DRM, because the concerns are real… just that you often speak of it as if every book vendor will have no choice but to sell DRM’d e-books on all of these ePub-playing devices. I don’t think that’s the case.

Sure, I expect Adobe DRM to be out there. But I also expect savvy consumers will let each other know, “The books from XYZ can be transferred from my machine to my husband’s.” “I had to replace my reader, but I didn’t lose my books from ABC books.”

Even Grandmom can understand that.

So, in the long run, we’ll see non-DRM stores selling well, thanks to word-of-mouth and consumer reporting sources, leaving the rest to eventually give up on DRM in favor of other, really workable methods of protecting their interests. (Don’t get me started on what those will be…)

And so, let’s concentrate on getting standards in place, and trust that the market, working with consumers, will work out the rest.