People liking physical books has less to do with nostalgia and more to do with the fact that physical books have much better and more refined formats in many ca

People liking physical books has less to do with nostalgia and more to do with the fact that physical books have much better and more refined formats in many cases. Ebooks are actually a lot better in some formats than other formats. Digital magazines seem to not work as well because they are different formats and they try to either maintain their existing format and business model or they are basically websites. I have yet to see the digital magazine format really be awesome. Also, one could argue that a monthly curated collection of photos and articles doesn't make much sense when they could be delivered instantly for minimal cost. Novels feel like they are way better in digital format. A 300-1000 page novel as a paperback is an ok reading experience, but on a e-ink device, you get an improved experience due to the easier storage, retrieval, lightness, etc. of the e-ink Kindle type devices. Even on a Kindle Fire or iPad, the ebook reading experience of reading a novel is pretty great. The Bible as an ebook in standard epub or kindle format kind of sucks because it is often referenced in particular book/chapter/verse and it's a big enough book that navigation doesn't work super well on a kindle type device, but Bible apps are fantastic because they make it easy and fast to navigate, get multiple translations, etc. Same content, different formats/presentation. Programming or bigger reference type books I don't think work as well in epub or kindle format yet, because you need something more like a full size iPad to really be close to the original format and a smaller kindle or kindle fire sized device loses enough formatting that it doesn't work as well. If those books were redone to be something formatted for specific device size, it could work really well potentially, but then the cost structure changes a lot from the traditional publishing model of do a book in one format and sell it in lots of places. Instead, you have something closer to video games where you might have the same game ported to various platforms specifically with varying formats/fidelity. Comic books feel hit or miss on tablets because again it really depends on the format. Full size iPad is a lot closer to the original comic book size and format than something like a Kindle Fire or iPad Mini. To get around this you can zoom into panels and that can be decent, but that feels like a mixed bag. I think books in various forms going digital is going to be really a work of figuring out what the right formats are and how to translate the books into those formats at a reasonable cost. Some formats are cheap and easy to go digital right away and provide a great experience, some formats are going to take a lot more work. How much people like digital books is going to depend largely on the experience of reading them. If publishers can create a great experience, people will like that. If the experience sucks, people won't buy. One reason Amazon is so successful is they have understood from the beginning that ebooks have to be better than physical books for people to care. It took a while, but they really made it work for novels on the kindle. I think an approach similar to responsive design might help, but it's really going to come down to making great products for each device/format/platform.