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Originally Posted by Enkidu of Abydos
what puzzles me is why ?
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To echo others, it's mostly convenience.
Also, the market is not small and is not flat. IIRC the US alone spends about $35 billion on books (including everything btw), and that's a huge market.
Certain parts of society buy large numbers of books, especially education. It will be a huge benefit, IMO, if you can replace the 50 pounds of books that a 10 year old carries with a 2 ounce ebook reader.
Also, while most people buy only a book or two per year, there are many people who buy 20 or more books a year. Those big buyers benefit substantially from all the conveniences associated with ebooks.
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Originally Posted by Enkidu of Abydos
it has been my experience that the majority don't want to read metallic gadgets instead (myself not included there of course).
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So far, studies tend to show that once the reader gets over that initial reluctance, they prefer ebooks to paper.
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Originally Posted by Enkidu of Abydos
most of the prospective market are probably Americans, and 99% of Americans for reasons completely puzzling to me (might it be capitalistic indoctrination ?) actually believe you should pay for copying digital files from the Internet (like books, movies, music, games, apps...) so why the heck buy and use e-readers ?
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The US is an affluent country and is not afraid of gadgets, but eventually other nations are likely to make a similar shift.
And yes, some of us do believe that the people who spend their time and effort writing, publishing and distributing books deserve to get paid for their work. Do you genuinely believe that the people who make textbooks put no effort into their jobs? Or that writing fiction only takes 5 minutes, a pack of cigarettes and a cup of coffee? Or that computer games write themselves?
A ton of work has to be done before you can put something onto the Internet. What I find puzzling is the idea that you should get someone else's work handed to you for free.