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Originally Posted by CommanderROR
A company like Sony needs to go ahead and start the ebook hype, if their store can offer beststellers early or at the same time as the harcover comes out and make it cheaper than the actual book...then we're in for a treat.
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Not just cheaper, but significantly cheaper. Cheap enough to merit the cost of buying the reader. If the eBook has DRM, cheap enough to throw away when you are done with it.
With few exceptions, eBook sellers have not gotten this.
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Originally Posted by CommanderROR
imagine a world where you just have one device that contains your library...you can save space and money...no more hardcover editions for beststellers you simply have to have as soon as they're out...schoolbooks, newspapers, everything could be beamed to a (fixed or flexible) epaper device.
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Actually, that was the subject of a Ben Bova book I read back in the 80's.
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Originally Posted by CommanderROR
Many people are afraid of change, and that is a pretty large change...but think about what happened to tapes when the CD came out and what is now happening to VHS cassetes due to the fact that DVD is now becoming more comfortable as a viewing AND recording medium.
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If by "people" you mean "publishers" then you are right - for the most part.
If you mean "people who read alot of books" you are mostly wrong. People who read plenty of books would love to be able to carry around all the books they want to read in the immedate future on one device.
The people who stand to lose the most are the middlemen. Just like music downloading means that the RIAA is becoming irrelevant, so do eBooks mean the irrelevancy of publishers. Authors can now write their books on their PCs, pack them into the correct format, and sell copies on eBay or Amazon.com. The publishers are the only ones that will have no place in the eBook economy.
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Originally Posted by CommanderROR
The trouble is that there has been no "breakthrough" so far, and if Sony and it's competitors don't start hyping their ebook readers and shops pretty soon the new reader will sink without a ripple just like the Librié.
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I don't think they need to hype their readers. People who need (or want) to carry around plenty of books are already looking at this device (or will want one when they see someone else with one).
After a while, like PCs and PDAs, the price will drop so that anyone can get an eBook reader (assuming that DRM doesn't stifle competition - that is) and then the "casual" reader will get one.
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Originally Posted by CommanderROR
DRM is a problem too, but iTunes is DRM infested as well and they sell like world-champions...
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For now. More and more people are getting bit by the DRM snake as they try to use a different DAP than the iPod with iTunes. "You mean that after spending all that money with iTunes that I can't take my music to my new iRiver?"