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If a bookseller is charging me anything resembling full retail price for an e-book, I do feel ripped off. I'll borrow borrow borrow the e-books from the library (which is where I get all my reading "previews" from), and books I want to move from dating to marrying, well, I get the real thing.
I'll pay EXTRA for a printed book just for the utter freedom owning it gives me. I can do anything I want except copy it, or plagiarism... but the book is mine to scribble in the inside flap, loan, resell, bookcross, donate to shelters, (and there is a place to donate at the hospital so inpatients can read and take home if they like, too). Everyone in my household can read the SAME copy and then I can loan it to my neighbours. Way more bang for my buck than the privilege of sticking it on some gadget that will likely be obsolete in 10 years.
Even though it's been nearly 3 years and I've been through 4 different e-reader models I still feel more attached to my physical books as far as the placebo feeling of true ownership goes. But don't get me wrong. I love my e-reader. I just feel it's a great device to hold my freebies and temporaries.
And yes, I know, printed copies of books can get destroyed or lost in physical disasters, theft, or people who refuse to return them. But out of the number of books I have, so far, very little of the above has happened to me. But I have happily given copies of books to people who have needed them due to dire circumstances.
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