Quote:
Originally Posted by mikecook
Sorry but I've heard this argument before and it still makes no sense! If your turntable/CD player/iPod (i.e. ebook reader) is old technology and you wish to go out and purchase the all-new-fangled device then yes, you DO have to go out and purchase all your favourite music (eBooks) again. This is the way the world works.
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Er... no. I was able to convert many of my LPs to cassette, and then CD format. I only bought CDs where the quality of the music mattered enough to me that the higher fidelity of the CD offered enough extra value to justify the expense. And Apple has made it quite easy to convert CDs to play on the iPod.
In any case, the two aren't really comparable, because, apart from sheet music, there has never been a long-lived portable storage mechanism for music, so people accept limitations as we try to find one. The same is not true for books, which have been around for thousands of years. The "extra features" of ebooks (e.g. low weight/volume, searchability) have not yet provided enough value for people to be willing to accept having to replace them whenever the manufacturers come out with a new device or format. I'm not sure if there is any feature set that would make this a good value proposition. I think a portable format (read: no DRM) will be critical for full market acceptance of ebooks.