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My opinion is that ebooks have reached the end of their initial period of explosive growth. They haven't replaced printed books, though they certainly have carved out a place alongside them.
Looking forward, I predict continued shakeups in the ereader market as new technologies become available. Clearly there is demand for color e-ink, and I think that once a good technology for that is worked out, it will eliminate the black and white ereaders in short order. Color e-ink will probably also expand the ranks of ereader users quite a bit, as it will pull dedicated comic book and magazine readers into the fold.
I don't see printed books going away completely in the foreseeable future. For someone who buys one or two books a year, an ereader just doesn't make much sense. Ereaders make sense for dedicated readers, but the occasional readers outnumber us by 100 to 1 or more, and the publishing industry knows it.
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