Quote:
Originally Posted by elizilla
But when you talk about paper books being re-used by multiple people, how many of them really are? The bookstores get paperbacks, stock them for a short time, then send just the covers back to the publisher to get credited for the unsold ones - those paperbooks never even get used once before they enter the waste stream. At the local recycle center, I have seen whole dumpsters full of books, with covers even, not just the stripcover books dumped by the retail stores. A lot of paper books are used once, just like magazines. Second stop, landfill.
Compare this to e-readers. When we get a new device, if the old one still works, we don't pitch it - we hand it down. If I were to replace my ereader I could give the old one away within a few hours, to someone who would be tickled pink to get it. And since I paid so much for the darn thing, I'd make a special effort to give my castoff to one of these people. Even if one of my readers died, I'm sure it would be valued by a nerdy friend with a soldering iron - it wouldn't get to the landfill for years. I'd say that a much larger percentage of ereaders will make it to the secondhand market, than paper books.
The key to making readers greener is to make them more reliable and durable, and maintain enough scarcity by keeping the price up. Unfortunately for the planet, the tech is probably headed the other way. They're going to get cheaper, more disposable, more common, less prized. But for now? They're not yet highly represented in the waste stream.
What I would not be surprised to see, is a college textbook sold already installed on an ereader. When a textbook costs $150 on paper, the price of a dedicated hardware device to read it on is a much smaller percentage of the cost. They already have MP3 players like this at the library, they are audiobooks with one book on its own device, and no data port. It's like hardware DRM. As the ereader prices come down they will do this with the more expensive ebooks.
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Agreed. This whole argument that e-books are somehow more disposable is a little silly. They can be stored forever and handed out to whoever you wish. DRM can be easily removed with a quick google search. Hand them out to whoever you wish.
As far as the textbooks, they have their own style DRM and I have yet to find anything online on how to remove it, so I don't think textbook companies have to worry about their stuff leaking out, especially if they just allow it to be rented. The few I've used expire after the semester.