3 ms·

Maybe books resiliency has more to do with the aberrant prices for ebooks? They are rarely cheaper than physical books and I often find them to be even more exp

Maybe books resiliency has more to do with the aberrant prices for ebooks? They are rarely cheaper than physical books and I often find them to be even more expensive! Either way, I hope that phones do not become the preferred way to read books, I really like my e-reader, if only the technology seemed a little more modern (Its hardly changed in 5+ years) I think they would have no problem becoming more popular.

dragonwriter 11y ago
> They are rarely cheaper than physical books and I often find them to be even more expensive! ebooks are easier to store, easier to back up, and easier to access where and when you want than paper books, and can support functions (search, etc.) that paper books don't. There's a good case that -- outside of the downsides of DRM for those books that are burden by it -- ebooks are just plain better than paper books in many ways. So its not really unreasonable that they'd be more expensive (books generally don't have direct substitutes, and the ebook and physical version of the same book don't come from competing entities, so the tendency for a perfectly competitive market to drive prices down to production costs is mitigated -- OTOH, the forces driving prices up to marginal utility are present just fine.)
- copperx 11y ago
  I understand the upsides of ebooks, but this often happens with technical ebooks too. You know, ones containing equations and diagrams, which are atrocious as ebooks with few exceptions (one that comes to mind is Knuth's TAOCP -- it is decent as an ebook, but that took a lot of effort from a team at Stanford).
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Actually, technical ebooks are the ones I find most valuable (I tend to prefer a 12" tablet as a reading device for them, though there are some that have decent PDF versions.)
    - reustle 11y ago
      What is your preferred 12" tablet?
- superskierpat 11y ago
  I get the advantages of an ebook, but they are intrinsic to the medium, I'm guessing the cost to produce a book higher than the one to produce an ebook. (Especially if they use pandoc or something similar)
SyneRyder 11y ago
The price depends on where you're based. I'm in Australia, and it's typical to spend $30 or more (sometimes $50) on a paperback book at a local bookstore, even an online bookstore. Whereas I can find the same book on Kindle for $14, and even then Amazon complains "This price was set by the publisher". That made it a no-brainer to switch to digital for me. I love my Kindle 3G Keyboard and I really hope e-readers stay around too. But I've noticed I've been using my Galaxy Tablet a lot more for reading lately, even with its lousy 160ppi resolution.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> They are rarely cheaper than physical books and I often find them to be even more expensive! ebooks are easier to store, easier to back up, and easier to access where and when you want than paper books, and can support functions (search, etc.) that paper books don't. There's a good case that -- outside of the downsides of DRM for those books that are burden by it -- ebooks are just plain better than paper books in many ways. So its not really unreasonable that they'd be more expensive (books generally don't have direct substitutes, and the ebook and physical version of the same book don't come from competing entities, so the tendency for a perfectly competitive market to drive prices down to production costs is mitigated -- OTOH, the forces driving prices up to marginal utility are present just fine.)

copperx 11y ago
I understand the upsides of ebooks, but this often happens with technical ebooks too. You know, ones containing equations and diagrams, which are atrocious as ebooks with few exceptions (one that comes to mind is Knuth's TAOCP -- it is decent as an ebook, but that took a lot of effort from a team at Stanford).
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Actually, technical ebooks are the ones I find most valuable (I tend to prefer a 12" tablet as a reading device for them, though there are some that have decent PDF versions.)
  - reustle 11y ago
    What is your preferred 12" tablet?
superskierpat 11y ago
I get the advantages of an ebook, but they are intrinsic to the medium, I'm guessing the cost to produce a book higher than the one to produce an ebook. (Especially if they use pandoc or something similar)

SyneRyder 11y ago

The price depends on where you're based. I'm in Australia, and it's typical to spend $30 or more (sometimes $50) on a paperback book at a local bookstore, even an online bookstore. Whereas I can find the same book on Kindle for $14, and even then Amazon complains "This price was set by the publisher". That made it a no-brainer to switch to digital for me. I love my Kindle 3G Keyboard and I really hope e-readers stay around too. But I've noticed I've been using my Galaxy Tablet a lot more for reading lately, even with its lousy 160ppi resolution.