Quote:
Originally Posted by Format C:
Car is more efficient than horse (*) when it comes to transportation.
But when you eat it, it's a no brainer. I've never see people eating Fords.
So, my point is: compare different things on the same field.
And reading for pleasure is not aonly about efficiency.
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I don't eat either Fords or horses!!!
For me, and for many people, some of whom don't realize it, reading is about the WORDS in your HEAD, and how you visualize them after they entered your brain by whatever means. So audiobooks and ebooks and paperbooks accomplish the same goal. Some people have trouble concentrating if the medium is something they are not used to (I often lose my concentration with audiobooks, but as I'm getting used to them I'm getting better). In the end for me, it's the same result. The book is the words and their power alone. A book is ready the moment a writer finishes a manuscript, or a word document, or even recording his voice. Non when it is bound in hard cover, that's just one possible means of transmitting the words to the reader. That's the way I think, at least. And I've known people who really hesitated to give up all that you describe about paper books (smell, touch, etc) but when they were convinced to try ebooks never looked back. My mother was one of them. I was -partly- one of them. So I can now safely say, for me at least, that all I thought I would miss from paper books is now not only irrelevant, but sometimes actively avoided.
And having said all that, I think we are missing the point of the article. Which was to give in a funny and lighthearted way a warning to the publishing industry, which is doing all it can to accelerate its own death, because instead of embracing the new technology it tries to invent obstacles, like delayed publishing, high prices, drm, geographic restrictions and so on.