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I'm still wondering what you mean by 'too soon' but yes we are in the early stages of popularity for ebooks. Although ebooks and readers have been available for a pretty long time now they have yet to be popular. I jumped in when eink came out, I sense and believe that it is the trigger that will act as a catalyst for a drastic movement from paper to electronic reading. It is a concordance of facts that should precipitate this. The first should be portable flexible eink devices, the second environmental pressures, the third that is still up in the air is a universal standard format, and fourth a separation of device from the computer or a combination of both of them. All of which at a certain time when combined with a decrease in prices will bring popularity and then mainstream use.
This fourth reason, a combination of reader and computer in the same device has not been largely discussed before. I believe it would have the same impact in poorer countries that the cell phone has had over regular phone lines. (It is cheaper to install communication towers than wire a whole region) The reader could be an access to nets just like a computer and function without wiring.
If the reader can be made popular in the third world, then it's on its homestretch. Here I have a BIG question. Will the powers that be want to allow literacy to reach third world masses? Because if it does it will throw the world as we know completely off balance.
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