Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
I was into computers way before ebook readers or even most of my more serious reading life. I have been tracking, following, looking for ebook since before they existed, first on computers, then on pdas, laptops, and finally dedicated ebook readers! I still prefer some books in paper form, but fewer and fewer...
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I wasn't dedicated enough to read anything longer than a short story from a stationary computer monitor and didn't really start in on ebooks until I got a netbook in 2008, but I did check on ebook progress occasionally from the late '90s onward, always baffled that we still hadn't sorted it very well. I would say it wasn't even e-Ink and the Kindle's success that shaped things up, so much as the smartphone and tablet era convincing retailers like Amazon that they had to make their offerings multi-platform and spurring some competition in e-reading software. Mobile reading apps also provided (and continue to provide) a gateway experience to ereading on devices that people have with them anyway, opening up the market beyond the early adopters and 'special needs' consumers (you might remember that Kindles early on were associated with a similar demographic to Rascal scooters).