Quote:
Originally Posted by pagansoul
I remember when having a personnel computer or a cell phone made you part of a niche group. Now everyone and their dog has a cell phone and over 50% of the homes in America have a computer. Remember when a family had one TV set in the house or one car in the driveway...give the ereader a little time and everyone will own one.
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The ereader has more barriers since it only does one thing...and it does one thing the majority of people don't do very often.
They will catch on more, but if they are every mainstream it will be in the form of some small tablet pc type of thing that's an easy on the eyes ereader, a computer with internet and e-mail, a pda, a video player, etc. etc.
I could see down the road some easy to carry around all in one device taking place of a lot of these gadgets we use today.
But I don't think pure ereaders will ever catch on as the number of people who read regularly for leisure drops with each generation as people are more enamored by movies, music, video games the internet.
And I'm not being a grumpy old man there, I'm 30 and spend a lot more time on those things than I do on leisure reading. Partly from being an academic and getting burned out on reading scholarly papers, student papers etc.
I do think ereader use will expand and more avid readers will buy them vs. sticking with paper books. Price coming down will have a lot do with that. $300+ is a bit much for a one-purpose device for most people.