Are bookstores still worth fighting for?

[kyteflyer]

I dont want bookstores to disappear! There's something kinda nice about browsing the shelves, and you cant get that aroma of the printed page on your ereader. That said, I dont buy as many books as I used to, but I still buy them once in a while... I've tended to borrow books from libraries more than buy them since my finances have contracted somewhat. I like dead tree books

[BeccaPrice]

The last time I was in a bookstore, we purchased about $200 worth of books, maybe half of those were mine. And of those books, I re-acquired 3 of them in electronic versions, because the font used in the book was so small that I couldn't read it.

It has to be either a very special book, or one not available in eformat, for me to buy print these days. And I'm not that old, just have bad eyes.

[Katsunami]

At one side, digital is more convenient than "real" stuff.

I have hundreds of CD's stuffed into a small box as FLAC files. I still buy CD's, but I only do so to be able to create my own FLAC files. (For people who wonder: FLAC is a compression format that does not lose any musical information, as compared to MP3.)

I have hundreds of books stuffed onto my HDD as EPUBs.

I have thousands of pictures stuffed beside the EPUBs, as RAW or JPG files.

If I would have all of that as real CD's on shelves (let alone LP's; everything is in boxes in the attic right now), real books, and real photo albums, I'd need a house three times as big as I do now. The only reason why I still have DVD's and Blu-Ray discs sitting on shelves, is because I don't (yet) have the space needed to rip them. A single DVD takes around 8.5GB, while a Blu-Ray can go up to 30GB or so. I *could* rip and store the DVD's, but the Blu-Ray's are just too big.

On the other side, digital is also breaking down the world as we now it. No more CD-stores. No more bookstores. No more photography labs. No nothing.

Maybe the convenience of digital is making the world less rich and interesting to live in.

[avantman42]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Maybe the convenience of digital is making the world less rich and interesting to live in.

Maybe, maybe not. My five year old is interested in space. He watches videos recorded on the International Space Station. Try telling him that the world isn't "rich and interesting to live in".

ETA: mind you, he also has lots of paper books

[Rob Lister]

If a bookstore needs fighting for, it isn't worth fighting for.

[Apache]

In have to agree with the people who suggest that online book buying has doomed the brick and mortar stores. Long before I started reading eBooks I was buying most of my books online. The hard backs were half what you paid in the stores and I always got free shipping too.
Apache

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by SouthernSun

I don't think that's accurate, at least not everywhere. I'm 21 myself, and in my area you're far more likely to see a 30+ person using an ereader, and the younger crowd using paper.

There is always a niche where this could happen. However, with the advent of smartphones, ereaders, and tablets the digital age of book reading and buying is underway and there is no turning back. It might be adopted slowly in some areas because of the penetration of the internet, but it is coming.

[SouthernSun]

Originally Posted by jersysman

There is always a niche where this could happen. However, with the advent of smartphones, ereaders, and tablets the digital age of book reading and buying is underway and there is no turning back. It might be adopted slowly in some areas because of the penetration of the internet, but it is coming.

This implies that the younger generation are either Internet dependent, or don't have Internet access at all... Neither of which are accurate, OR related to what I've observed as a preference for paper books.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by SouthernSun

This implies that the younger generation are either Internet dependent, or don't have Internet access at all... Neither of which are accurate, OR related to what I've observed as a preference for paper books.

I think it's accurate. Many people, including me, would be lost in this "information is everything"-world without the internet. Using the internet, I can find stuff in a matter of seconds, which would take me hours, days, or maybe even weeks when finding out the same stuff without using the internet. Maybe it wouldn't even be possible.

20 years ago, if I wanted a book, I would go to our local book store. Normally, they wouldn't have it and needed to order it, causing me to wait three weeks. A paperback book of a new release would cost around fl. 29.95 If we had had euro's back then, it would've been € 13.50.

10 years ago, if I wanted a book, I'd go to an online retailer (finding the cheapest in the process) that was in the Netherlands, and buy the book from the cheapest one, or the one that had it in stock. If it wasn't in stock, I'd wait a week. The price of a new release paperback would be around € 9.95, despite 10 years of inflation.

Nowadays, if I want a book, I find an online EPUB-seller *anywhere in the world*, and I download the book immediately. It's *always* in stock, and almost always cheaper than the paper book, especially if I buy in a US-located store and pay in dollars. I often buy new books for less than $7, which is €5.32 at the time of writing.

So in 20 years time, the waiting time to be reading my book has fallen from 20 days to about 30 seconds, and the book is more than 2,5 times cheaper, all because of online stores.

And I don't even have to get off this chair to be reading a new book if I wanted to.

While I said that replacing every "off-line" store and all stuff with online stores and digital stuff may not be good an may be making the world less rich and interesting, I don't think I could go back 20 years in time... so yes, I, and I think most others of my generation, are quite dependant on the internet if it really comes down to it.

[SouthernSun]

I just haven't experienced those of my generation (Generation Y - I'm 21) preferring ebooks to paper books.

[SouthernSun]

Oh gosh... I don't know how to edit posts on Tapatalk... Auto correct changed "ebooks" to "Ebola"!

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by SouthernSun

Oh gosh... I don't know how to edit posts on Tapatalk... Auto correct changed "ebooks" to "Ebola"!

I'm glad you explained that. I was wondering.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by SouthernSun

Oh gosh... I don't know how to edit posts on Tapatalk... Auto correct changed "ebooks" to "Ebola"!

LOL... I thought so. "I can't imagine preferring THAT to reading books..."

Nice. I hate autocorrect when it jumps in to "fix" words it doesn't know.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by SouthernSun

This implies that the younger generation are either Internet dependent, or don't have Internet access at all... Neither of which are accurate, OR related to what I've observed as a preference for paper books.

I said no such thing. But, I do say that the digital age is here and what one does with it will be up to them, It has not hit everywhere on this vast planet as of yet, but it will eventually. Progress is a funny thing. It has a way of sneaking up on you and before you know it, it is here. Nothing is absolute, but if you think this younger generation is not more fully immersed in this digital age than the older generation is, then I do believe that you are wrong. The facebooks, twitters, tumblrs, pininterest of the world is not going anywhere. Tablets, phablets, chromebooks, smartphones are here to stay and will get more numerous. Paper books will always be around, but I believe they will become a niche products just as LPs are to the music world.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by SouthernSun

Oh gosh... I don't know how to edit posts on Tapatalk... Auto correct changed "ebooks" to "Ebola"!

My iphone does that as well. It's bad when I don't catch it.