[sfernald]

I think the thing is that reading is undergoing a change with the Internet, in the same way that the Gutenberg changed everything.

The concept of going down to Borders to buy a novel may be dying away, but the written word is doing just fine thanks. People read (and write) more than ever, but they do so differently than they used to. With web surfing, pdfs, emails and other technologies, people probably read for entertainment more than ever. I would estimate that for every picture, video, or flash game I view on the internet, I probably read a thousand words.

Because the Internet provides so much access to the written word for free, the value of the written word may be changing. It may become impractical to sell the 100,000 words of a novel for $20. Maybe the future will be providing a tiny google text ad on every 200 word page, but providing the text for free. I don't know.

But I think the eReader is just an attempt to try to figure this out. What works in regard to the written world in the digital age. It's a convenient, portable means of reading that provides long battery life and is easy on the eyes for extended reading.

The funny thing is that Jobs is probably in a position to change the world. If he built a really cool ereader with the apple branding and marketing, it just might become cool to read like it is to listen to music - but no that's just a dream, reading has never been cool. Even in Shakespeare's era, people didn't want to read (even if they could, most people probably didn't even know how), they wanted to watch fun plays with music and drama and have the story unfold before them.