MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - E-books are "bound to fail"

Chaos · 04-27-2007, 01:22 AM

According to an interesting article on ComputerWorld, e-books are apparently bound to fail. It's a thought-provoking article, that does bring up some interesting, but not terribly uncommon points. For example, a fair number of people do just like the feel of a paper book. To be honest, I'm one of them. But I disagree with them being headed towards mainstream failure...

While they may not be able to replace paper novels completely, they can almost certainly replace newspapers, many magazines, and even some internet use, once the hardware and software systems develop a little more. Instead of the paper delivered to your door, it's automatically sent to your e-book reader. Instead of your magazine getting half-shredded and read by the mail workers, it's sent directly to your (preferably colour, for a magazine) e-book reader. And of course there's also the obvious applications for reference libraries. You wouldn't want to curl up with a 10-pound medical reference text book anyway.

While no, an e-book reader may never be able to truly replace a paperback novel for many, it can almost certainly replace other sorts of less permanent documents, such as newspapers and magazines, and is absolutely perfect for replacing large reference volumes, making them easy to search without a 200-page index.

Perhaps 'e-book reader' is just too misleading a name, as these are at least as well suited - if not better - to non-book written material. I highly doubt the e-book reader will ever disappear, and I honestly believe these could replace everything I noted. References, like encyclopedias, probably in only 5-10 years, and completely replacing newspapers and magazines in, perhaps, 10-15 years.

Of course such predictions of time frames are wildly inaccurate. Don't yell at me if it happens next year, or fifty years from now.

(Edit: I just ran into this interesting thread, which definitely touches on how e-readers could replace the hard-copy newspaper and magazines.)

04-27-2007, 01:22 AM	#1
Chaos Evangelist Posts: 418 Karma: 281 Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Device: Assorted older devices	E-books are "bound to fail" According to an interesting article on ComputerWorld, e-books are apparently bound to fail. It's a thought-provoking article, that does bring up some interesting, but not terribly uncommon points. For example, a fair number of people do just like the feel of a paper book. To be honest, I'm one of them. But I disagree with them being headed towards mainstream failure... While they may not be able to replace paper novels completely, they can almost certainly replace newspapers, many magazines, and even some internet use, once the hardware and software systems develop a little more. Instead of the paper delivered to your door, it's automatically sent to your e-book reader. Instead of your magazine getting half-shredded and read by the mail workers, it's sent directly to your (preferably colour, for a magazine) e-book reader. And of course there's also the obvious applications for reference libraries. You wouldn't want to curl up with a 10-pound medical reference text book anyway. While no, an e-book reader may never be able to truly replace a paperback novel for many, it can almost certainly replace other sorts of less permanent documents, such as newspapers and magazines, and is absolutely perfect for replacing large reference volumes, making them easy to search without a 200-page index. Perhaps 'e-book reader' is just too misleading a name, as these are at least as well suited - if not better - to non-book written material. I highly doubt the e-book reader will ever disappear, and I honestly believe these could replace everything I noted. References, like encyclopedias, probably in only 5-10 years, and completely replacing newspapers and magazines in, perhaps, 10-15 years. Of course such predictions of time frames are wildly inaccurate. Don't yell at me if it happens next year, or fifty years from now. (Edit: I just ran into this interesting thread, which definitely touches on how e-readers could replace the hard-copy newspaper and magazines.)