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Originally Posted by Flaneurette
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This is where he gets off track ...
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The logical conclusion was that manufacturers had done their jobs too well. After all, e-readers aren't powerhouse devices. If you buy one, it could last for years, giving you no real reason to upgrade. However, data suggests that e-reader ownership dropped precipitously. People weren't just neglecting to buy new devices; they seemed to be actively ditching their old ones.
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What he fails to see is that eReaders (like tablets) had a huge growth spurt. Both dropped in sales (the tablet after the eReader). Does that mean people quit using tablets or eReaders? No. The market just shook out the chaff. If you've ever looked in pawn shops for eReaders or on Shop Goodwill, etc., you'll find a lot of eReaders from years ago that were hardly used at all. People who read (like me) were so enthusiastic about eReaders that we bought them as gifts or convinced others to buy them. The new owners were less than enthusiastic and they soon ended up in drawers or at pawn shops or second hand stores. Besides, the market got saturated. Sales drop in a saturated market.
Another part of the argument that is just silly ...
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Only 19 percent of U.S. adults owned an e-reader in 2015, and the numbers didn't vary much by sex, location or age. Twenty-seven percent of affluent individuals surveyed owned an e-reader, and they were the most enthusiastic buyers by far. Compare and contrast: 68 percent of U.S. adults owned a smartphone in the same year, and 87 percent of affluent individuals did, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
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Does the writer honestly expect eReader ownership to match smartphone ownership? I think 19% (nearly a fifth of all Americans, about 61 million people) is a pretty impressive number for a specialized device.
The following pretty much shows the writer's utter disdain for eReaders.
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Both Barnes & Noble and Amazon released new E Ink readers last year: the extremely pricey Kindle Oasis and the extremely mediocre Nook GlowLight 3. Neither product is really inventive enough to reverse the e-reader's fortunes, and it's not really clear where either company could go from here.
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OPINION noted. What it really means (and the whole article in general) is that I (personally) don't like eReaders. Well, whoop-dee-doo.
And then the writer goes on to show his disdain for genre fiction (again, his OPINION) and ends by arguing ...
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One could argue that a smartphone or tablet would provide just as many opportunities for genre writers and readers to find one another, but remember: Kudisch's readers don't generally buy her books on smartphones.
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Well, one
could argue that scientists should spend the majority of their time and talent attempting to mutate elephants so they have wings, but reality kind of stands in their way. Fact is, heavy readers (at least a large percentage of them), prefer eReaders. After all, 61 million Americans own an eReader. Pretty impressive for a "niche" product with an "uncertain future."