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Calibre Viewer already provides this functionality, and in principle, it works well. The page numbers of the printed book can be displayed in headers, footers, or along the left or right margins. However, the feature is far from precise and, unfortunately, not very reliable. You never really know when one page ends and the next begins. Additionally, when scrolling through the text, the page numbers remain stubbornly in place rather than updating dynamically.
My impression - confirmed by a post from the creator of Calibre in this very thread - is that this design choice is primarily aesthetic. As he put it: "The number is never going to be displayed inside text, I find that utterly horrible." And yes, I can see the point, it certainly isn’t the most elegant solution to have page numbers suddenly appearing mid-paragraph.
However, my counterargument is simple: it doesn’t have to be mandatory, it could simply be an optional feature. Those who value the seamless flow of text in an ePub wouldn’t even notice it, while others - especially users in academic fields - would greatly benefit.
After all, different users have different needs, expectations, and priorities. A good piece of software should be flexible enough to accommodate these variations. There is no reason why functionality and aesthetics cannot coexist.
Or to put it another way: form follows function.
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