My mama said: "In 10 years, those will be gone."

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by bbpo8

Also I think people on this forum underestimate the difficulty most non-technical people experience in dealing with DRM and multiple formats. Caliber is great but is really only suitable for about 10% of the population.

I would argue that most people here FAR OVERSTATE the difficulty that non-technical people experience with DRM. I bought my mom a Kindle, spent 15 minutes showing her how to use it, and haven't once had to deal with a technical support issue in two years, and she's nearly completely technology illiterate. Formats? DRM? She doesn't even know what that stuff is, she just knows that she goes to the store, chooses a book, and its reading it 30 seconds later. She's read hundreds of ebooks in that timeframe.

Finally there is the fear, uncertainty and doubt about entrusting your books to private companies. Many companies have left the business, leaving their customers as orphans. Even Amazon has a dubious future, since it never seems to make much profit and the inflated stock price is unsustainable.

And I think that this fear is overstated too... many people here love their books and keep them forever and re-re-re-read them, but I suspect that the majority read the book once and then move on. My to-read list is too long to go back and re-read books (other than technical books, which I buy in paper). If it's lost, so what... I paid a price that I was willing to pay to read it once and if it was priced too high for that purpose I skip it. I have very few of the paper books that I purchased 10+ years ago and I don't care and I won't care in 10 years about the ebooks that I'm buying today. Could Amazon disappear tomorrow? Sure, or they could blacklist me, but my lost e-books would be the least of my concerns. I'd spend more money to see the movie once at the theater, which I'd spend less time enjoying. I don't bother backing them up or removing DRM even though I'm fully aware and capable -- I'm also capable of getting a new copy "for free" if I feel so entitled some time in the future.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

E-books are here to stay. The dedicated e-reader will only disappear when tablets have both the advantages of tablets and e-readers. I think we will have e-ink tablets that have the brightness, color and refresh rate of LCD combined with the lower power consumption of e-ink.

E-books may be here to stay, but that doesn't mean paper books are going away. Remember, the posters here are among the most die-hard e-book supporters, people who not only read e-books but spend their time discussing them. As a result, consensus on this message board is highly skewed compared to the general populace. Paper has advantages too, even if not everyone cares about those advantages.

True, even if paper books do go away it won't be an overnight thing. There are still books that can't be easily converted to ebook format for example such as technical and reference books and you can't just switch a large industry like publishing is over to a whole new medium over night either. There are still parts of the world where online access isn't available or where it is unreliable I'm sure so they need paper books there and then there are all the people whose jobs revolve around paper publishing. From the people who make the rolls of paper and the ink to the people who work the presses on through to those who pack the books and work in the warehouses, and so on. Many of those people would lose their jobs if books went totally e overnight (assuming it could be done that quickly) which would lead to a large unemployment problem all the way down the line. Not to mention all the lost revenue that any one publishing house would have to allow for as they switched over as they wouldn't have any books going out in the meanwhile. Revenue that would probably be snapped up by their competitors who were still publishing in paper. Plus not all book stores could probably afford to do business that way I'd think. There are the big chain stores, but I'm sure there are plenty of small mom and pop stores in some parts of the country and the greater world beyond. And then there are the used book stores who would lose business as well. No new paper books would mean that their supply of books for resale would go into decline. Toss a pebble into a pond and ripples go in every direction.

[cfrizz]

I doubt that paper books are going anywhere within most of our lifetimes. But at the same time, neither are ebooks. There is no stuffing the genie back in the bottle no matter how badly publishers wish to do so.

[Barcey]

I know that ebooks will be around as long as I'm alive. I'm offended that your mama doesn't think I'll live 10 years.

[Lemurion]

I don't get why anyone thinks of it as an either-or, there's room for both and will be for years to come. Both print and digital have their own advantages, so the choice should never be all one or all the other, but the right one for any given situation.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I don't get why anyone thinks of it as an either-or, there's room for both and will be for years to come. Both print and digital have their own advantages, so the choice should never be all one or all the other, but the right one for any given situation.

But digital will only get better --- and the advantages paper still has at this time will disappear. So in the long run there is no reason for a large pbook market to continue to exist.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

I don't get why anyone thinks of it as an either-or, there's room for both and will be for years to come. Both print and digital have their own advantages, so the choice should never be all one or all the other, but the right one for any given situation.

It's just a matter of technology catching up. Once that happens, paper bows out.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

It's just a matter of technology catching up. Once that happens, paper bows out.

There will always be collectors. Even with the LP to CD change years ago, you can still buy new LPs. And that even has the huge drawback that you need an actual device to use it. With paper books, you can just buy them and read, even 100 years from now (unless you cannot read anymore, but then ebooks will also be turned into movie books or audiobooks)

But collectors don't want the cheap versions, they want the sturdy ones, the ones that look nice on a shelf. That's why I think the mass market paperbacks will be removed from the book stage.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

It's just a matter of technology catching up. Once that happens, paper bows out.

Yep, the same thing happened to the scribes of the Middle Ages. Their main job was copying forms for contracts and such as well as hand copying books and when Gutenberg came out with his printing press there went the scribes job. The 1st printed books did have typeface that looked like handwriting, but that didn't last for long.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

There will always be collectors. Even with the LP to CD change years ago, you can still buy new LPs. And that even has the huge drawback that you need an actual device to use it. With paper books, you can just buy them and read, even 100 years from now (unless you cannot read anymore, but then ebooks will also be turned into movie books or audiobooks)

But collectors don't want the cheap versions, they want the sturdy ones, the ones that look nice on a shelf. That's why I think the mass market paperbacks will be removed from the book stage.

LPs yes, try and find 78 and 45 rpms. Limited to used records stores.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

LPs yes, try and find 78 and 45 rpms. Limited to used records stores.

I have 0 knowledge about vinyl, so I've no idea what the difference is between them all

The fact is, that CDs have been available since 1982. Which is a long time ago already! And still LPs are being made (apparently not all versions of vinyl). With the added difficulty that finding a player is getting harder as time goes on. With books, you won't have that difficulty. Which is why I think that it'll take a very long time before print books are no longer made.

[gmw]

I have no doubt that paper books will be around for a very long time, but the interesting question is how long until they are produced only for specialist and collector sales rather than general consumption. I'm figuring it will take at least another generation (25..30 years), and wouldn't be surprised if it was longer.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But collectors don't want the cheap versions, they want the sturdy ones, the ones that look nice on a shelf. That's why I think the mass market paperbacks will be removed from the book stage.

This. Hardcovers will be around for quite a while yet, but for paperbacks the writing is on the wall, I think.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

...but for paperbacks the writing is on the wall, I think.

Oh no. When did that start? Walls are not really portable, you know.

(Sorry. Couldn't resist )

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

There will always be collectors. Even with the LP to CD change years ago, you can still buy new LPs. And that even has the huge drawback that you need an actual device to use it. With paper books, you can just buy them and read, even 100 years from now (unless you cannot read anymore, but then ebooks will also be turned into movie books or audiobooks)

But collectors don't want the cheap versions, they want the sturdy ones, the ones that look nice on a shelf. That's why I think the mass market paperbacks will be removed from the book stage.

Mass market, at least the older ones, have their share of collectors, but I agree they'll be gone first, but not simply because of the lack of demand from current collectors. The problem is economics, the business model is too inefficient, so the publishers are likely to stop producing them before the demand vanishes completely.

Trade books (hardcovers and trade paperbacks) not only have a higher profit margin, but once returned can usually be resold as remainders enabling the publishers to at least recoup the printing cost. Mass market paperbacks are destroyed rather than returned, so the wastage is significant.

eBooks will pretty much eliminate the mass market relatively quickly, but the trade should stay around quite a bit longer.