[Raphi'Elohim]

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.

I don't see the point of color. I used to be a devotee to Sony eReaders and most of the later models had the ability to annotate with a pen. That is the only feature I miss with the newer eReaders. What happened is not enough people were willing to pay the premium price for Sony eReaders etc...

Kobo filled the vaccuum left by Sony and Kobo is the only reason why Amazon kindles did not stay more static in features and ergonomics.

That being said Epub3 format is said to be advancing compared to Epub2 with nice newer features.

eInk pricing fell to a certain point, and then stopped. Tablets are now cheaper than an eInk reader.

What you need to understand is that reading has always been a niche thing. How many people read as much as Warren Buffet for instance ? He reads 500 pages a day of non-fiction and credits it to his success. Most people just won't do it.

Combine that with the fact that American culture is anti-inellectual like the Roman empire and you can see the case for the premium price.

I think sales of eReaders peaked around 2010 and people who were not part of the niche reading culture bought them just for the trendiness of the thing and then sales fell off when they realized they really don't like reading as much as they thought.

Also, eReaders are so good at what they do people rarely need to upgrade and that is another factor in funding the Barnes and Nobles of the world who are struggling.

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.

I think there is but they might come from Europe and China and just have like a vanilla android on it. Mantano/Bookari sideloaded on a rooted Nook device can use multiple stores too and has an e-ink mode. That is if you can get it to work right.

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.

It is the anti-intellectualism of the culture around you like I said before.

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.

I stripped all my books of DRM and always do.

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.

Agreed

It is the worst of times for reading ebooks.

Disagreed , eReaders have reached a state where they are perfect niche product for doing one thing well.