Quote:
Originally Posted by PennyPie
These are 'old salts' & know that seamen don't have the physical space to accumulate loads of pbooks...
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"Aargh, matey!" (ptoo!) "Whadaya need them thar new-fangled gim-cracks fer? A real sea-farin' matey knows all he needs is two books anyway (besides mine, that is):
Moby Dick and
Robinson Crusoe. The rest properly belong as silt on top o' Davey Jones' locker! Ain't that right, Polly?"
"Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!"
"Ahr, right... that'll be sixteen bucks, mate, pay the laddy at the door..."
(Ahem... glad I got
that out of my system!)
That example shows how hard it is to get some people to consider new things, even when it has obvious advantages for them. Unfortunately, many new technologies had to be almost literally forced down some people's throats, either through price manipulation/taxing, peer pressure, or simply removing the alternatives. People tend to forget this once the technology is fairly ubiquitous... in fact, they often forget their initial resistance to it.
It's not wonderful to imagine a world where printed books are so hard to find or so expensive that the populace is pretty much driven to e-books. If it does happen, these "old salts" will be squawking the loudest...