Quote:
Originally Posted by leebase
It is the worst of times....
Looking back over ten years of participating on this forum, I think it is the worst of times for reading ebooks. IMHO.
eInk innovation has all but come to a stop. Where are the large eInk readers with pen input and worklow? Where is color? Yeah, yeah...yet another one is "real close" and just showed something "promising" that they never said would make it into a tablet ereader.
eInk pricing fell to a certain point, and then stopped. Tablets are now cheaper than an eInk reader.
There are no more independant eInk devices to speak of. Surely not of the quality of the Sony line. Pretty much "eco system" plays like Amazon, Kobo and Nook are all that's left. And only Amazon has a healthy business.
Fictionwise and many many other beloved ebook stores are gone and are never coming back. Along with them are the special pricing deals that so many of us loved.
The rise of audio books is a detriment to actual reading. It's bad enough with the twitters, face place, and insta-whosit's of the world destroying people's attention spans....now folks are too lazy to learn to read and are counting listening to a book as if it's reading.
The big 5 are all still in business. There is no difference in pricing of books from the big 5 in any of the stores.
Sometimes eBooks cost the same or even MORE than a paper book.
You still don't own an ebook, you have a license for it.
eBooks are too d@mned expensive. Apparently.
Apple still sells ebooks.
DRM is still the norm. Everyone's ebooks can disappear at any moment.
People are going blind because they are reading on tablets and phones which shoot light DIRECTLY INTO YOUR EYE. eInk, where light must first bounce before finding your eye, isn't being embraced by everyone the way SCIENCE tells us it SHOULD.
It is the worst of times for reading ebooks.
|
While I agree with all you said, on some level, I also disagree.
In pure reading terms, with a good e-ink reader, things are great and in some ways better than they ever were.
Where things fall down, and they do in a few ways, is future prospects to some degree, especially as regards e-ink devices, where the future isn't clear at all. Then there is the ebook prices in many instances, where some publishers are playing games and no doubt testing what they can get away with, using psychology with a lot of weak minded people for sure. If that isn't bad enough, then we have very little flexibility with prices, as you mentioned, and a real monopoly is going on.
Sure, there are a bunch of benefits, and many think those outweigh the losses, and perhaps they do. But still, where will we be in 10 years from now?
I used to buy a lot of second hand books, especially when a book I wanted wasn't readily available or too steep a price. You can't of course do second hand with ebooks, not legally ... and DRM can ruin that anyway.
As a buyer/reader I feel I am gradually losing control over the books I want to read and usually keep. I have rebelled in various ways, and now go more for Indie ebooks.
I am definitely not a happy reader sometimes. And to be honest, the relationship I have with several publishers and even authors at times, has really soured. The good and bad with technology and posting messages etc.
I have heard it said many times, that books have been devalued by their digital versions, but really for me, it is more about losing respect for the providers, who are often behaving in bad ways and offering up lame excuses.
Definitely not enough transparency going on, and not enough care or smarts for the transition between physical and digital.
Take the situation with my wife and mother. They often read the same books, and not so many years ago, they used lend to each other. Now it has become more problematical, especially as my mother's eyesight means she needs either (hard to get) large print books or ebooks for her iPad. My wife has a Samsung tablet, but despite reading the odd ebook, prefers not to, and really wants to read the old fashioned way. I cannot convince her or my mother to use an E-Ink device, even though they have tried out my Kindles. So now, the same book is being bought twice (at least), whereas it used to be once. That's not even considering other family members and friends who used to share and borrow. So it seems to me, that publishers are reaping a huge advantage, but in many cases give pathetic excuses, despite all the facts, about why ebooks can't be much cheaper, and sometimes are the same or more in price.
However, despite the backward steps at times, I still feel ebooks are a progress in the right direction.