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I already have a great portable e-book reader that's light enough to hold in my hand. It's my phone. And it's a sunk cost. Oh, and it's not locked to a single b
by undoware 11y ago
I already have a great portable e-book reader that's light enough to hold in my hand. It's my phone. And it's a sunk cost. Oh, and it's not locked to a single bookseller.
I spend all day reading text on screens; when it comes to recreational reading, why are my eyes suddenly so precious that they need a special display that's supposedly easy on them? Like, the rest of the day I'm beating them up or something? $500CAD is almost the up-front cost of a Nexus 6p. And when I get tired of reading Proust I can play Neko Atsume.
This is vesselmancy -- the same wayward urge that had fools plonking out for leatherbound copies of Encyclopedia Britannica as late as the '00s, when they could have -- should have -- known better.
The container has been abstracted. The value is not there anymore. Amazon is just doing arbitrage on the delayed response the background culture has to value migration. $60 leather case included indeed.
- bendykstra 11y agoIt's funny that you mention vesselmancy. As an early adopter of e-ink, I had to endure years of talk about how e-ink will never smell or feel like a real book. I'm the opposite of the person who ordered the leatherbound Encyclopedia Britannica. I bought an early ereader and put all my books in the attic! Phone displays and computer screens are just fine for reading text, but the fact that you completely discount the value of e-ink makes me wonder if you've seen a recent e-ink display in person. The advantages really become apparent at the extremes: bright sunlight or dim rooms in the evening. Also, the ergonomics of reading on a phone or a computer are not great for books and long articles. It's no coincidence that e-readers tend to be about the size of paperback books. Tablets are better, but they are more expensive, more fragile and more power-hungry.