[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

There are reasons for expandable memory.
1. Easy transfer of books from the computer to the reader.

I have no idea what you are talking about. It takes just as long to transfer books to a memory card as it does to transfer them to the internal memory.

2. The reader is used by multiple people and they all can have their own memory card.

That is both a fringe use which is hardly likely to happen, and pointless since they have no need for separate libraries.
Failing that, every device has a builtin solution -- the "collection".

3. Security and privacy of personal books.

4. Additional capacity, particular if you consider audio files capable for some readers or rather large use picture books or image PDFs.

I already mentioned manga as an exception. Not particularly sure I agree with abusing an ereader as an MP3 player, especially when few ereaders can do audio anyway, but... sure, whatever.
If that's your specific need, go get a device with expandable storage and I will be happy for you.

5. Organization of books by card, swap a card and get a different set.

It sounds vastly inefficient.

Why would I want different, mutually incompatible (apparently) sets of books?
Why wouldn't I just want to see all of them, and maybe put them in collections?
It's the best of every world!

If I really want to swap out my entire library, I probably haven't planned it out beforehand, and I might as well refresh the device directly, from calibre. In fact, that even allows me to do all sorts of fine-tuned filtering!

6. Backup.

That is a really bad idea, you should have a proper backup already.
While it is true a good backup should be saved in multiple external locations, this doesn't quite count unless it is actually a full backup.

Does it include e.g. calibre metadata, especially for book formats that don't support the full range of possible metadata? What about ancillary files of special interest? If you have a large collection, can you actually fit the entire thing on the memory card? And of course, many disasters that might happen to your computer would happen to your ereader as well.
Cloud storage and offsite storage is vastly preferable -- some people leave a hard drive at their relatives' in another city.

While you can argue there are other ways to do some of these things, the uses are all customer preference items and legitimate. I think people should just agree to disagree.

Dale

I think the more far-fetched your counter-example is, the less legitimate it is.

On that score, your point #4 was a good one -- but I also already agreed it is a valid exception.