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I mostly agree with him.
We own two e-ink readers, one is a librie, the other a reader (prs-500).
The reason we actually have these is because both my wife and I are avid readers, find it easier to get what we want to read over the internet than at the local library and I'm computer savvy.
The reason we bought these specific two was their price. I loath sony products as a rule, but they were the only e-ink ebook readers to be had for about $200. No way were we going to fork out more than that, and reading on a pda wasn't an option. Were the lowest price still $300-$400, I'd keep killing trees to print out books on my trusty laser printer, as I did for the at least ten years prior to buying both devices.
So I agree with Doctorow, unless their price drop down to $15-$20, most people aren't going to pick dedicated readers up. But that doesn't mean there isn't a market for such readers, only that it's a small one and that it'll last only as long as their reading experience is significantly superior to that of multi-purpose devices.
As I write that, I realize makers such as Sony, Cybook ans such (I do not include Amazon) are shooting themselves in the foot by not releasing an SDK pretty much immediately after the release of their reader.
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