3 ms·

The 2010s were supposed to bring the eBook revolution. It never quite came

8 points by elorant 7y ago

emodendroket 7y ago
$14.99 isn't really that much money when you factor in the time you'll spend reading a long book, but I guess people don't see it that way.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
I love the idea of ebooks, but I havent found an approach to reading them I enjoy. I love my Kindle, but I can't read programming books off of it cause they're designed differently. I can read other 'ordinary' types of books though. It's really weird, I can read documentation for hours, but I can't read a PDF / eBook. I don't know why, I don't know if it's just the way it's rendered page by page unlike web pages, or what.
- kedean 7y ago
  I think the requirement of fitting things onto 'pages', which PDF's have to follow as a "document" format thats intended to map to printed pages, is a huge detriment. It's a physical limitation of print that shouldn't exist in electronic form. I've had great success with ebooks on O'Reilly's Safari platform, because it uses a continuous scrolling model with "flipping" only being used for switching chapters. Unfortunately I'd rather not read off of my laptop most of the time, so that's sort of a roadblock to Safari for me (they do offer a tablet application, but I refuse to authorize my tablet through the company that provides my subscription).
  - emodendroket 7y ago
    I couldn't disagree more. I find continuous scrolling much worse for long texts.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    Yeah I realized as I wrote my comment that maybe that's the problem. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so! That's understandable about the tablet, and also a shame that you'd even have to do that. I'd rather the company provide me the hardware they want to lock down, that would be easier to manage. Thanks for sharing your side, I never got Safari because it's a bit much for me to pay out of pocket at the moment.
Havoc 7y ago
Works for me. Mostly due to not having space / wanting to travel with books. Plus Amazon's daily 0.99 usd deals occasionally have decent stuff. At a higher rate than I can read so that works Edit - Bad blood (theranos) is on sale today

8 points by elorant 7y ago

$14.99 isn't really that much money when you factor in the time you'll spend reading a long book, but I guess people don't see it that way.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

I love the idea of ebooks, but I havent found an approach to reading them I enjoy. I love my Kindle, but I can't read programming books off of it cause they're designed differently. I can read other 'ordinary' types of books though. It's really weird, I can read documentation for hours, but I can't read a PDF / eBook. I don't know why, I don't know if it's just the way it's rendered page by page unlike web pages, or what.

kedean 7y ago
I think the requirement of fitting things onto 'pages', which PDF's have to follow as a "document" format thats intended to map to printed pages, is a huge detriment. It's a physical limitation of print that shouldn't exist in electronic form. I've had great success with ebooks on O'Reilly's Safari platform, because it uses a continuous scrolling model with "flipping" only being used for switching chapters. Unfortunately I'd rather not read off of my laptop most of the time, so that's sort of a roadblock to Safari for me (they do offer a tablet application, but I refuse to authorize my tablet through the company that provides my subscription).
- emodendroket 7y ago
  I couldn't disagree more. I find continuous scrolling much worse for long texts.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Yeah I realized as I wrote my comment that maybe that's the problem. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so! That's understandable about the tablet, and also a shame that you'd even have to do that. I'd rather the company provide me the hardware they want to lock down, that would be easier to manage. Thanks for sharing your side, I never got Safari because it's a bit much for me to pay out of pocket at the moment.

Havoc 7y ago

Works for me. Mostly due to not having space / wanting to travel with books. Plus Amazon's daily 0.99 usd deals occasionally have decent stuff. At a higher rate than I can read so that works Edit - Bad blood (theranos) is on sale today