Quote:
Originally Posted by ahi
There is no genuine business or technical reason why eBooks cannot be beautiful artifacts. That's mainly what you are missing... and though you can live without it, it's basically you (and all the other readers) being taken advantage of by the publisher.
That's basically the sum total (oversimplification) of my problem.
- Ahi
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To me, a beautiful artifact is a physical object. I could see an eBook reading device as a beautiful artifact, rather than the eBook itself.
My other point - and we may be talking at cross purposes here - is that not all physical books are beautiful artifacts, so why should we hold eBooks to the beautiful artifact standard if we don't hold all paper books to it?
I consider eBooks to be a replacement for mass-market paperbacks, and hold them to similar standards. Yes, I would have much higher expectations for an eBook that I was buying as the equivalent of a hardcover first edition - and to date I haven't seen an eBook that meets those expectations. However, if I'm looking for some light reading I'm not as worried about the packaging. The perfect is the enemy of good enough and I don't need to pay for perfection in an eBook when I wouldn't be paying for perfection in a paperback.
It's the whole question of where the value lies for me. I buy Moleskine notebooks because they're worth the extra cost. When it comes to the kind of books I buy as eBooks, I'm not usually willing to pay the extra cost for a hardcover equivalent when I want a paperback replacement.
Horses for courses.