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Can the network support 10 billion people logged on simultaneously? What if 10 billion people wanted to access the same text at the same time? Should they all have to pay the same price??? What if the US government decides to give away ereaders to children upon entering the first grade? Should we restrict these new readers reading to texts that they are only capable of purchasing?? Why not simply give them access to the entire library and raise their parent's property taxes a bit?
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This seems wrong on so many levels.
1. It appears that you are trying to cloak your own self interestby saying it is all about the children. If you are truly concerned for children lobby, donate time and money to making sure they have enough to eat and a safe environment.
2 Raising the taxes of the parents to provide ereaders to all children is not going to benefit all children. Many children do not even have electricity freely available to power the readers and if I was a parent with a hungry child or no where to live I would be outraged at the very thought (just me I know)
3 There are AFAIK over a million public domain books and thousands of library books already available that would be new both adults and children alike. It would take quite a few lifetimes to run out of 'new' material. Most areas in my priviledged world have access to best sellers via the libraries. Sure you might have to wait a few weeks, but this will not mess up your life.
4 How do you propose to raise property taxes in 3rd world countries where the need may be the greatest. The majority of those 10 billion you mention probably live in third world countries with no property to be taxed on.
5. At least 3-4 billion of the aforementioned 10 billion are children that you say should all have ereaders. Who will manufacture and distribute several billion ebook readers to them along with the accompanying technology, such as wireless coverage, education to enable them to use the technology and force the respective governments to implement the program? Who will translate all of this 'knowledge' that you speak of into languages spoken by these children?
Just curious
Helen