[Harmon]

[QUOTE=kovidgoyal;2077196 (1) is untrue as reading the comments on that blog (about EPUB 3) will tell you.[/QUOTE]

Well, I certainly don't propose to argue that point with YOU!

(2) What does the publishing industry being disaggregated have to do with having a preference for reading on non-backlit screens?

The preference for reading on non-backlit screens is a distinct minority preference among that aggregate of people who either purchase EBRs or tablets. When (and if, of course) tablet pricing becomes competative with EBR pricing, or EBR pricing stops being as marginally profitable as tablet pricing, major players will stop selling EBRS. That seems to me to be the message to get from Amazon's commitment to a separate, profitable division for the sale of Kindles. Non-backlit EBRs are a minority preference, and there is a market point at which that preference will cease to be indulged by the major players because the money won't be there - it will be in tablets.

The reason the disaggregation of publishing relates to that is that epub/mobi is important to publishers/Amazon. It appears to me that it was intended as a standard for the publishing industry (even though between having different flavors of epub and topping it off with DRM has resulted in the Balkanization of the standard). Once the publishers are disaggregated, that basis for using epub evaporates, and some kind of new standard will have room to emerge - one that is accessible to everyone on any kind of reading device (other than EBRs). Maybe that standard continues to be epub. But maybe it will be something from Apple. (Or, God forbid, Microsoft...I remember WordPerfect...)

Personally, and without any information or technical basis on which to support this, I expect that in a short while, the backlighting issue will somehow be solved on tablets - and for that matter, the battery life issue, which is the other major advantage of EBRs, will also become less important. I think that five years from now, EBRs will be an obvious transitional device to something more universal.

Furthermore, the publishing industry no longer existing does not mean that having the ability to package up long form writing into discrete packages with metadata that can be stored/transmitted/archived/processed in ways that webpages cannot, becomes irrelevant. A point also made in the comments on that blog

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I agree with that - which is, I suppose, where calibre saves the day for those who hang onto their EBRs.

Except for one thing: disagregation will probably have surprising results. I mean, who, besides Bezos, would have anticipated the distinct possibility that Amazon will be the Publishing House of the Future? The elephant in the room is whether Amazon takes over the turf the legacy publishers lose. Will Amazon support epub? And will tablets - iPad, Nook - continue to support epub? Assuming, of course, that they continue in the ebook business with the departure of the legacy publishing houses.

Suppose Apple decides it wants to make a universal 7 inch device that will, among other things, be the location for all publishing efforts - magazines, newspapers, books. One thing they might do is come out with some kind of Universal Writing Program - and give it away. (Haven't they already done something like that?) Who will support epub in the face of that? (Unless it is Apple itself that decides to do so...)

And it is important to note that dedicated EBRs will never be a huge market, given the limited number of people that read a lot, unlike say smartphones. So the declining sales numbers are inevitable as that market get saturated.

Yep. Is there is a "critical mass" of people who want EBRs sufficient to sustain a profitable market in the face of increasingly efficient competition from tablets? There might not be, even if epub survives.