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On the one hand, I like book stores. On the other hand, there are a few problems:
- They almost never have in stock what I want. So they need to order it and it often takes 5-10 working days to arrive. So why shouldn't I just order it online now, and have it tomorrow?
- My vision is poor. If a book is not at eye-level, I can't read the spine.
- To actually be _able_ to read the spine, I have to tilt my head.
- A book store has no index. I _HATE_ browsing for stuff. I _NEVER_ aimlessly browse in any store to see if there's something I might buy. If I go to buy something, I know _EXACTLY_ what I want to buy, and/or the criteria it has to meet. That's why I like buying online: I can either immediately buy what I want, or if there are many options, filter on the criteria and then choose one of the options that is left.
- The only two things I buy at a store are clothes and shoes because I want to try if they fit. And even then I almost always know what I'm going to buy and I don't browse here either.
- Why should I read paper books? Have you ever held a luxury hardcover copy of something as big as LotR (complete) when sitting on the couch? Those books are heavy and unwieldy compared to an e-reader. The only paper books I still have and read are illustrated editions of my favorites. And with those, I often have them for the illustrations alone.
- Smell and feel of books? Meh... I don't really have a love books as an object. When I converted my entire library to un-DRM-ed ebooks, I gave away all my paper books. (Same when I converted all my music to FLAC; gave away all the CD's.)
- Paper books can't even be backed up. My library is safe from anything including fire, because I have three copies in three different places.
Yeah... book stores. They were nice, up to and including 2010, because for many titles we didn't have anything else.
The only two disadvantages of digital books are DRM, and tagging/fixing them where necessary. Both are a pain to deal with (but Calibre makes it doable).
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