MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - UK Daily Telegraph "Ebooks will make authors soulless, just like their product"

LDBoblo · 09-18-2009, 01:16 AM

It's really a shame to see yet another article defending paper books only using emotional rhetoric and almost completely abandoning a logical, clean discussion.

I personally dislike most ebooks and prefer paper books 9 times out of 10, but it's not because I find paper to be sensual or any such poppycock. It's because the devices suck for many types of reading navigation, the screen quality is inferior to all but the absolute worst paper/printing in contrast and acuity, and most ebooks look as if they were formatted by a 10-year-old (I'm amazed the readers don't use Comic Sans as the default typeface.). They are storage devices with primitive viewing capacity that shows in a very crippled way some of the content, stripped of any professional bookmaking work. The storage is the real benefit, and it's a real benefit indeed in many ways.

I even think ebooks will one day, if they live up to any of their thus-far wasted potential, be a great medium for reading. There's no soul to speak of that they could lose. Tangibility sure. There's aways the amusing hypothetical post-apocalyptic situation where the batteries eventually die out and the optical discs degrade (<20 years), and education for the last remaining generations of mankind will rely on the few remaining paper libraries that survived in the bomb shelters of paranoid militants. If I decided to get up and go to the mountains to become a hermit, I'd probably want some tangible media. I don't really expect either of these to happen, but they're more believable than anything to do with "soul" or "warmth" (put a better processor in and they'll generate warmth too...but then it will be called "sterile" instead of "cold"). I'll always want SOME paper books, but moving a library is a pain in the ass, and carrying a bookcase on a commute or a trip...not so fun.

Sure, ebooks suck right now, but with luck the devices and content will improve. It'd be nice if some of the anti-ebook crowd would stop with the BS emotional end of it, and start being critical about the shortcomings of current ebook technology and implementation. Perhaps then these articles wouldn't be casually disregarded as irrational ebibliophobia.

09-18-2009, 01:16 AM	#29
LDBoblo Wizard Posts: 1,385 Karma: 16056 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Asia Device: Kindle 3 WiFi, Sony PRS-505	It's really a shame to see yet another article defending paper books only using emotional rhetoric and almost completely abandoning a logical, clean discussion. I personally dislike most ebooks and prefer paper books 9 times out of 10, but it's not because I find paper to be sensual or any such poppycock. It's because the devices suck for many types of reading navigation, the screen quality is inferior to all but the absolute worst paper/printing in contrast and acuity, and most ebooks look as if they were formatted by a 10-year-old (I'm amazed the readers don't use Comic Sans as the default typeface.). They are storage devices with primitive viewing capacity that shows in a very crippled way some of the content, stripped of any professional bookmaking work. The storage is the real benefit, and it's a real benefit indeed in many ways. I even think ebooks will one day, if they live up to any of their thus-far wasted potential, be a great medium for reading. There's no soul to speak of that they could lose. Tangibility sure. There's aways the amusing hypothetical post-apocalyptic situation where the batteries eventually die out and the optical discs degrade (<20 years), and education for the last remaining generations of mankind will rely on the few remaining paper libraries that survived in the bomb shelters of paranoid militants. If I decided to get up and go to the mountains to become a hermit, I'd probably want some tangible media. I don't really expect either of these to happen, but they're more believable than anything to do with "soul" or "warmth" (put a better processor in and they'll generate warmth too...but then it will be called "sterile" instead of "cold"). I'll always want SOME paper books, but moving a library is a pain in the ass, and carrying a bookcase on a commute or a trip...not so fun. Sure, ebooks suck right now, but with luck the devices and content will improve. It'd be nice if some of the anti-ebook crowd would stop with the BS emotional end of it, and start being critical about the shortcomings of current ebook technology and implementation. Perhaps then these articles wouldn't be casually disregarded as irrational ebibliophobia.