Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Jordan
I think Charlie, like a lot of people, may be attaching too much significance to the dedicated e-book reader in this equation. As someone else in these forums pointed out, dedicated readers are essentially a luxury item... they are not required to read an e-book, and plenty of e-books were read before they were created. E-books have enough things going for them, and won't be hindered by the lack of a cheap dedicated reader.
I largely agree, finding the proper selling model and accepting an amount of inevitable piracy/theft/loss, instead of futile attempts to lock e-books down at hardback prices, is paramount.
Personally, I wouldn't call them disposable, any more than I'd call a paperback disposable... a good book is a good book, whatever the medium, and worth keeping. But I suppose if all you want to do is read it and delete it, at least you're not filling up the landfills...
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I'm not so sure that the initial hardware cost is all that relevant. Oh sure, it *seems* to be an excessive investment, but let's assume you're shelling out $7.99 for those MMPBs. If you read 40 or so books per year, that's a hefty $320 just for the books, not to mention bookshelves to store them in. But not quite enough of an expense to warrant a $300 investment in a dedicated ebook reader.
However, if you read more than that, given that so many ebooks can be had for around $5-$6, the initial investment becomes a bargain. I'm reading about 200 books per year, but I know I'm a 'special' case. The savings on 200 ebooks vs 200 MMPBs makes having a Sony or Bookeen a necessity instead of a luxury - and I can store them all on DVD-ROMs for later perusal.
But publishers can't seem to 'get' it and that's what drives people to the underground sites.
JMO
Derek