Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
Paper books will last at least fifty years, as long as I'm willing to not abuse them. Generally, if they don't last that long, it's my fault. With e-books, there's another party involved in keeping them accessible for long periods of time, and it's not in their economic interest to hold up their end of the bargain. ...
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Indeed we have some paper books here that will definitely last a long time - because we care for them and because they are not read that often. Some others get read very often and will need replacing - some, at a rough guess, 20 years after their purchase (obviously it varies with the quality of the book).
I'd like to see licence/DRM arrangements take serious consideration of the anticipated life-times of ebooks. It is one of the key comparison points against paper books and while they continue to sell those they should address that aspect.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar
In that way, DRM makes the lifetime of your e-books much shorter than that of your paper books (just ask people who bought DRM'ed books ten years ago). And that is why I don't want to pay the same price for the two types of books. I value a book's longevity.
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That variation of life-time is one of the things you need to weigh in when considering whether to purchase ebooks or paper books. I too value a book's longevity and so I choose a paper book for anything I really want to keep and re-read (among other reasons). ebooks offer different attributes to paper books and you have to take the different attributes into consideration when buying.