Mediahistory is a funny subject to study. One can well locate more or less the same social actions/reactions/discussions on a media change or lets better say media "enrichment" since the older media is hardly ever completly moved out.
Also I have to agree that "paper" is also a technology and a complicated also, just because the book in your hand doesnt beep and blink doesn't mean there is a lot of tech involved until you can get hold in your hand. Printing machines, paper recycling, publisher distribution and so on.
One interesting media change was from handwritten books to printed books in the 15th century. There were interesting discussons going on on how the printed books will change the value of the book, the quality of print or content, availability and so on. Also involved with big social implications, would the protestant movement have been possible without the Gutenberg machine and Luthers bible for everyone?
Another interesting media enrichment discussion was on the ending edge of the 19th century, when printing tech and wellfare became developed enough to allow daily printing. The newspaper was created. Oh some people already announced the degeneration of society to be caused by this
. Newspapers will replace the book for good?!?!
Interesting enough almost the same accusations newspapers had to defend itself from, they raised against the radio when it came up a few decades later. Now it was the radio that was said to lead to cultural degeneration.
Again almost the same discussions came up when the TV hit on the radio establishment. Nowadays you have an interesting competition between TV and internet. I was amused to see a TV-news being shocked that a research has shown most people would pick their internet over the TV if they had to decide for one of these two. (I'd sure decide for the internet also)
But today you still see books, newspaper, radio, TV and internet coexisting. So I hardly believe the e-books will make paper obsolete. They are an enrichment, sure they will take some of the market, but hardly move the books out of existence. I'd just hope the e-book producers get more a hang of the enrichment part they can do over normal paper, like inserting assertion notes on pages (thats more than iliads scribble feature (however can be done with paper note-its as well)), jumping between books, jump to internet discussions about a particular page of a book and so on.
Oh altough I like the smell paper, I love the smell of my iLiad, I hope it wont lose its factory smell too soon
And I hope book producents will take care more about quality prints due to e-books. A Horror story was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, altough not expensive you washed of the ink with your dry (!) thumb when going over the page. Or books that are bound so bad, pages start getting lose after reading it the 3rd or 4th time.