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Still evolving
Let's not forget that ebooks are a work in progress, not a finished, polished technology.
To borrow a metaphor from biology, all technologies mutate. Some of those mutations don't contribute to the survival of the species, and they die out. Other do, and they become hard-wired into the DNA of the technology and contribute to its evolution. Ebooks are still evolving.
I also find an interesting, more direct parallel in the evolution of paperback books. In the 1930s when modern paperbacks were first introduced as a cheap, more portable alternative to the hardback, publishers made them small by using maximum type on minimum paper. Margins were tiny. Typography was unimaginative. To make them cheap, not a whole lot was spent on design, and the materials used were cheap and impermanent. Most readers thought the trade-off was unacceptable and stayed with hardbacks. The popularity of the Armed Services Editions in WWII — really cheaply produced, ugly paperbacks — showed that people could grow to like reading best-sellers and great literature in a small, non-permanent format. Publishers began paying more attention to making paperbacks with style and quality materials. As a result, the paperback evolved to the point that design, formatting and sales focus on the paperback and modern hardbacks are basically the glued-not-sewn paperback put between board covers.
Today's most sophisticated e-readers may bear no resemblance to what we'll be using in 10 years. Remember: Twenty-five years ago the mobile phone was brick-sized handset umbilically attached to a ten-pound battery pack. And if you dropped the word "Amazon" into a conversation, everybody's first thought was Xena, Warrior Princess.
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