Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I have a collection of nice hardbacks too, astra, but I don't regard them as equivalent to paperback or eBooks. I think it's simply unrealistic to expect to be able to read digital media indefinitely. Formats come and go; media comes and goes. How many of us still have a floppy disk drive on our PC? I don't have to worry about what's going to be around in 50 years time, but I strongly suspect that none of our current eBook formats will still be "readable" then. I equally strongly suspect that my prized hardbacks will still be "readable", though. Many of them are already well over a century old, and there's no reason they can't last for another century.
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I actually disagree about ebooks lasting. Comparing a media format (floppy disks) with digital formats is a poor comparison - one comes and goes, but (except for DRM) there is no reason to think that systems won't be backward compatible when it comes to support for old filetypes. We do that now for old formats, at least any format that was widespread (as ebooks are). Even following your floppy example, sure we don't normally use floppies nowadays, but you could if you wanted to - drives still exist, disks still exist. Some systems are still shipped with built-in floppy drives.
IMO, though better formats may arrive, our current formats will last as long as we backup our data.