Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
No. Digital media don't degrade - there's no difference between a new ebook and a "used" one, whereas there's all the difference in the world between a new paper book and a secondhand one. There would be absolutely no reason to buy a new ebook if "secondhand" ebooks were available. It would destroy the market.
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Regular wear and tear has never mattered to me when absorbed in reading. Nothing short of missing pages, liquid soaked pages precluding page turning, or other sorts of impossible to ignore damage ever ruins my reading. Unless we're talking about collectible or souvenir/trophy value of physical books, degradation doesn't factor into the resale equation for me.
Timeliness, on the other hand, could be made to be common to both physical and ebooks (as well as music and video) and would actually enable the secondhand market to exist without destroying the first-sale market. Preventing plural possession of ebooks is all it takes. The question I wonder about is whether it's worth artificially mimicking the delays intrinsic to the secondhand physical book market in order to benefit from the ability to buy (and sell) secondhand ebooks. Are the benefits of a secondhand ebook market worth these arguably unnatural restrictions? Are there other ways a secondhand ebook market could be viable without going against the e-grain?