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Books will never die out. They are different from music, because you don't need a device to use them. New music technology has almost 100% acceptance, because the old music still needed technology and the old equipment is obsolete and near impossible to obtain. I still have a couple of 8-tracks from my childhood, but my parents' 8-track player died so I don't have any way to play them any more, and no way to lay my hands on a new 8-track player.
However books will never be obsolete. All you need to read a book is a book. Pbooks only come in a single format that can be used by everyone. You don't have to shell out a couple hundred bucks for a device to read them on. You can easily lend them to friends and sell used ones to other people.
Pbooks are also more durable. Throw two people on a deserted isle, one with 10 pbooks and one with a reader and 1000 ebooks on it. For the first couple of weeks the reader guy has a lot more books to read. Then his battery dies and he has nothing. The 10 book guy still has his 10 books and if he takes care of them, will have them for life. I ran into this today, when my PRS-600 had some sort of glitch that I was finally able to fix. It made me realize I really want to have a backup reader -- one problem with my device and all my books become inaccessible. The only glitch I ever had with a pback was forgetting where I left it.
-Marcy
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