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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Me, personally -- I'm not affected. If I buy a book in dead tree format, I'm not paying more for an electronic copy of it that I can't download. And I'm iffy on the whole D&D Beyond thing, anyway, so it's not gotten a dime of my money.

But I figured this will affect others and needed to be shared.

I do have an issue with the idea of them saying "Hey, this thing you paid for just a year or two ago? Yeah, we're chucking it out the window, now."

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Originally posted by Diffan

After WotC let D&D Insider die off with Silverlight and Internet Explorer, I haven't given them a cent for digital content. Some people in my group use D&D Beyond but I really don't see the point? 5e is NOT a largely elaborate system that needs any Character Builder anyways. So the fact that I'd have to double pay for a book (Physical & Digital) really rubs me the wrong way.

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Originally posted by Ayrik

I do find ebook formats good for certain things ... technical stuff, code repositories, etc ... they're always updated and the worthwhile resources always maintain version control archives. Some things you always need the latest-and-greatest while you never need the older broken stuff.

I don't find eBooks good for other reading. Especially entertainment and anything I consider a "reference". Vendor lock-ins to specific formats, apps, operating systems, hardwares. And they're more of a "subscription" than a "copy" - they can (and do) impose changes or controls on it anytime - they can "reprint" with errata and typo fixes but they can also decide when the book simply isn't "supported" anymore. Certain vendors I won't name (like Amazon) are becoming notorious for not even communicating these policies and changes to their customers - they want you to buy ebooks and they want you to not notice when items fall out of your library.

As if the book-buyer should pay for a book then be denied access to "his" copy? Just because the book-seller or the publisher or the author has withdrawn a license or whatever? Never a problem when the printed book is already sitting on your shelf.

I convert my files into generic pdfs. They can contain all the annotations, commentary, and features of any other ebook format. And they can be stored, copied, accessed any way I like on any hardware and any software. I want books, not "digital property".

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Originally posted by TheIriaeban

Digital copies are great for doing research as long as they are OCR'd. I know I have purchased the digital versions off of DMsGuild of books I bought years ago simply so I can have something easily searchable. Other than that, I find I still would rather have the physical book than have to view it on a screen. I spend way too much time looking at screens.

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