3 ms·

Interesting list. I do want to highlight this one: Moving is a pain in the ass It's worse than that, at some point the physical books actually affect your wil

by frossie 16y ago

Interesting list. I do want to highlight this one: Moving is a pain in the ass It's worse than that, at some point the physical books actually affect your willingness to move - which is just wrong, books are mean to be empowering not restrictive. Of your six down sides, at least four of them (1, 2, 3 and 6) are technological issues that I can only believe will be solved soon - it's kinda like calling a circa 1995 PDA "clunky". Sure it was, but one day the iPhone came along. As to 4 (DRM) - I understand and espouse all the arguments, but I can't help looking at my attitude to music. 10 years ago I bought music and DRM issues really vexed me. Now I subscribe to Pandora and.... I just can't quite care as much. It's not that I don't have the same issues with DRM as I did, it's just that in a subscription model they don't get in your way. I look at Netflix and Spotify and wonder how long before the same service exists for books (yes I know it's called "a library", you know what I mean). Can't help you with 5 - it turned out not to be a problem for me. Disclaimer: happy e-book convert (I have a nook)

jseliger 16y ago
Yeah -- I think the problems I'm noting are chiefly technological / price. But it's not obvious to me if they'll be solved in a year or two or five years or longer. I didn't use a PDA until I got an iPhone in 2009 -- a long time after 1995. As for the technology, I wrote this bit with the tech issues in mind: "Note that I'm not making some kind of moral argument about whether electronic reading is good, bad, or indifferent. To me, it just is. I foresee eventually moving chiefly to electronic reading, but I'm not sure when or how that shift will happen." It's worse than that, at some point the physical books actually affect your willingness to move - which is just wrong, books are mean to be empowering not restrictive. Very true.

by frossie 16y ago

jseliger 16y ago

Yeah -- I think the problems I'm noting are chiefly technological / price. But it's not obvious to me if they'll be solved in a year or two or five years or longer. I didn't use a PDA until I got an iPhone in 2009 -- a long time after 1995. As for the technology, I wrote this bit with the tech issues in mind: "Note that I'm not making some kind of moral argument about whether electronic reading is good, bad, or indifferent. To me, it just is. I foresee eventually moving chiefly to electronic reading, but I'm not sure when or how that shift will happen." It's worse than that, at some point the physical books actually affect your willingness to move - which is just wrong, books are mean to be empowering not restrictive. Very true.