I read a lot of those huge and ungainly scanned PDFs, even when the text is available as HTML, because I prefer my reference material to be properly typeset and

I read a lot of those huge and ungainly scanned PDFs, even when the text is available as HTML, because I prefer my reference material to be properly typeset and paginated. It’s much more convenient than visiting my local library and handling physical books, which I wouldn’t use at all if a scanned PDF was always available. I’m with the grandparent here – the problem isn’t the amount of work required to republish a book in a digital-first format like EPUB. It’s the fact that sharing books electronically in any format is a copyright violation, so the scans that exist already aren’t publicly accessible in DRM-free formats. That being the case, recreating those books in digital-first formats requires even more effort (because you have to find and scan the book first), for almost no reward (because you can’t publish the results).