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Originally Posted by Arrghus
Amen to that. It's a shame that this thread has been hijacked by those wishing to reduce the discussion to intellectual posturing about whose chosen format is better than whose. Reminds me of the silly arguments kids used to have in school about why Nintendo was better than Sega or vice-versa.
I read on my device because I do NOT wish to replicate the book experience. Some people like the feel, the smell, and suchlike of a book. I don't. But that's fine, that's why we have consumer choice. I like being able to read one-handed, to be able to adjust the font size, to be able to prop my device up in its case on the table (or my chest) using its leg feature; I like not having to inhale a musty mildewy smell, to have to put up with poor printing on cheap paper, to have to hold down the page to stop it blowing in the wind... etc., etc..
Others may be different, and that's why a happy medium would be allowing the user to choose between typesetting that more closely resembles the original if that is what they prefer, much like what JoeD (and I'm sure others) above have suggested.
Why are we not discussing the possibility to the abandonment of geographical restrictions in eBooks (if Pottermore really is an independent venture)? Wouldn't it be great if at the checkout one could choose to download the book in whatever language/dialect they want?
Why are we not discussing the possibility of the abandonment of the so-called 'Agency Model'? Some authors might be tied to their publishers when it comes to electronic distribution, but Rowling might provide a wake-up call for others (especially established authors) to not sign away their digital rights when it comes to contract renewal, and instead seek to negotiate directly with sellers like Amazon (and perhaps then promote their books on their own websites)?
Surely discussing aspects of the Pottermore development like those above is more interesting (and more open to the less tech-savvy) than debating the limits of a file format!
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The problem is the limit of some minds here. You feel that to try to enrich the reading experience is going to do the exact opposite because you feel it's taking away your choices. You have a choice. Your choice is not to buy if you don't like it. But to say we have to keep it simple because if we make it more complex, it won't work. You would still have the ability to change the text size on your reader. It's just that the way it looks would more approximate the book in terms of fonts and that is not necessarily going to look bad as you seem to think.
By approximating the look of the book, we are not trying to replicate the smell or the feel. Just the look and in this case, there is a good reason to do so. Because the look is quite good.
This is not the thread to talk about the agency model. There are plenty of other threads on that topic.
You are going on about lots of nothing and helping to turn the flow of this thread. I don't see why you don't want the eBook to look nice. Unless it's so people using ePub won't have it better then those using Kindles?