[rmeister0]

Originally Posted by bob_ninja

rmeister0,
Economics certainly can/will make sense, but may take some time. Consider newspapers whose lifespan is 1-5 days! The cost of paper and printing is far greater than electronic delivery to a reader, so at some point newspapers will offer significant discount for e-delivery to a reader. Books individually may be cheap, but at least half of them are thrown away and/or collect dust in the basement. There is also the hassle of storing them, etc. Depending on the number and type of books one consumes, svaing from e-delivery can add up. Once again, publishers will eventually have to pass on a lot of the savings onto consumers (from not having to print, distribute, etc.) which may not be happening right now. So it may take time.

But that newspaper costs an end-user fifty cents to a buck, and not everybody keeps big stacks of paperbacks in their basement. In addition, bandwidth, server infrastructure, and the staff to keep all these things working cost money too, so there really aren't cost savings to electronic distribution until volume hits a certain tipping point. What that point is, I don't know, but I don't think we'll ever reach it until we have the MP3 equivilant of electronic text. (We *should* have that already, either in html or pdf, but neither seems to have hit that critical mass yet.)

Originally Posted by bob_ninja

Keep in mind that there is also tangible benefit (that has certain $ value) of having quick and easy access to a library without computers and networks. You just cannot carry around many reference volumes in printed form, but you can carry them in a reader. For some/many professions that capability alone can be worth hundreds of dollars.

I agree that this is major, and there can be big wins in a lot of education markets. But except for college students (who can be forced to shoulder the costs themselves) education markets are badly cash-strapped. My comments were mainly directed to "pleasure reading" consumers, which is where the mass market (rather than specific, niche or vertial markets) is.

I use O'Reilly's Safari system for books I want to be able to access from time to time for technical reference without having to buy them, but it would be great to be able to access them when I don't have internet access. But I don't know if that ability is worth $350 or $700 in addition to the $20 a month I pay for that service.

Originally Posted by bob_ninja

I don't mind an "end-user friendly DRM" that enables Sony and others to make money so long as non-DRM formats are also supported. Also would be nice to have a "backup to local computer hard disk" option as I don't want to depend on any remote store 100%.

I think that would really be key. One of the things that made iPods popular was the ability to repurpose music you already owned, and ebook manufacturers seem to not understand that. The Gemstar fiasco is still prominent in the early adopter's minds, I think.

Originally Posted by bob_ninja

Lack of HTML support is unfortunate but I hope will be fixed in the future.

I really hope so. The fact that it doesn't, frankly, astounds me.