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Those are good thoughts Greg. It would be a pretty optimal solution if we had a wide audience buying many ebooks and low priced non-DRMd editions available for almost every book written. Even if the most recent and popular ebooks always commanded a more premium price.
As far as readers preferring a laptop to a dedicated device, I think it's two-fold:
1) People don't want to be forced to buy and carry and learn a new device unless they are sold on the benefit and ease of use.
2) People say they prefer to read on a laptop because of what I'll call the "magazine e-edition problem". Specifically, remembering that I am a huge e-book fan, what would I say when I fill out the subscription form of a trade magazine for a free courtesy subscription? Even if I really prefer the electronic edition, my answer to the question is that I want paper. The reason is that I don't know what form the electronic edition will be in. It might require a proprietary reader to be installed on my laptop. It might just be more headaches than it's worth. So even if I'd love a pdf version of the magazine, my answer has to be "no thanks" to the uncertain e-edition offer.
Same thing with the laptop reading question. There are so many potential headaches and issues that I think people find comfort in sticking with what they know - use their laptop since they already have it with them. Sounds better than spending money and time on a device they don't expect to use much anymore. But make ebook devices familiar and give consumers confidence that there are no DRM/format/cost issues, and they might just find that reading the paper and news and books and magazines on a device is their preference (well, on a great device with a large screen anyway). But lets face it, e-book reading devices are expensive and limited right now, and they do come with DRM/format issues.
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