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The concept of a "Faustian bargain" implies that there was another option, that they/we could've decided not to allow/have ebooks.
Ebooks started showing up in text format as soon as computers existed. Gutenberg started public domain texts in the 70's; bootleg ebooks (including both copies of popular/classic novels and subversive underground texts like the Anarchist's Cookbook) hit the newsgroups in the late 80s/early 90s. Once we had computers to store and move data, digital books were a given--the only things to decide were who was going to make money off them and how.
I wish more of the "ebooks are disrupting the publishing industry!!!" articles would acknowledge that "ebooks/no ebooks" was never a choice; it was "authorized ebooks/bootleg ebooks" ... and publishers let the second option get firmly established before considering the might want to participate in the new industry.
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