I’m a huge book fan, and I read a ton. I’ve probably donated more books in my lifetime than the average person has bought.
I also buy a lot of books simply because they’re beautiful. Nothing lovelier to me than a shelf of gold embossed leather spines – not to mention the beautiful covers.
Ebooks are not beautiful. They’re more utilitarian. I have a Kindle, but I haven’t used it in a couple of years – mainly because of covid and I’m not doing any travelling anymore!
I’m fine with reading novels on a kindle, but I still prefer physical books for textbooks. The textbook scene is predatory and very annoying right now - they make you use one time codes so that you can’t resell your books or buy used ones, and they can charge you whatever they want - but here’s the most annoying part - even though they’re asking you to pay a lot for books, they often don’t even have a normal hardback textbook, they’ll just give you an online code, and if you want to pay extra, they’ll send you a loose leaf version of the textbook that you have to put into a binder. I paid $270 for an e-textbook of a 100-level class and I didn’t even get an actual textbook with it. Obnoxious.
Amazon’s recent efforts to drive out small Sellers from their Marketplace has led to a mini-resurgence of used book store.
Several have opened in my area, & seem to be doing fine.
I believe Gray’s Anatomy has bonus online content.
There have been novels where you could read the chapters in different orders, or a different set of chapters, or even the content varies endlessly. That’s not what you asked, but it brings to mind something potentially easier to accomplish in a digital edition. Also many experiments in “interactive fiction” or “hypertext” from, basically, games, to novel-length works including sophisticated scripted+generated content that you can simply read or subtly interact with (eg this system was advertised as a hot new thing but the IP got shelved, so who knows?)
I don’t think printed books will ever disappear - but I myself have read one in the past six or seven years. I still have all the books I bought on my last trip to the discount bookstore sitting on the shelf unread. The Kindle is just so much better for me - the light, the fact that I can adjust the font size, the fact that it holds so many books. I flew from NYC to Tel Aviv a few years ago for a family wedding and my brother and sister ( who were reading hardcover books) expressed surprise that I was using a Kindle. But each of them read a single book for the flight there, ( about 11 hours) , the whole week we were there and the flight back. If I was planning to read printed books, I would have had to bring at least seven - I read four during the week and I always traveled with a couple extra in case I just couldn’t get into one or two.
I’m currently in mid-read in 3 physical books, 3 audiobooks, and 3 ebooks.
Since August 24th, I’ve finished 9 physical books (and utilized ~30-40 for reference or partial completion), 10 audiobooks, and 15 ebooks.
There are color “e-readers” but those are really nothing more than specialized tablets. They waste energy at a higher rate, since their screens are tablet/smartphone screens and must emit at least some light at all times. That type of e-reader could handle mobile, color illustrations.
An e-reader can go from $100 to $300 (or more for a larger writing e-reader) which is similar in price to many smartphones. I think a lot of people don’t buy e-readers because, despite their advantages, it might be cheaper to download a free e-reader app for their smartphone.
The typical e-reader uses e-ink, which is black and white only, only uses energy when the screen changes (typically a page flip) and the turning process is slow. A computer screen can make changes 30-60 times per second (or even more), but
That was from 2019. Source:
I can easily imagine ways in which ebooks could be higher quality or more enjoyable than things printed on paper, but I also don’t actually think those are requirements for ebooks to take over. Cost and convenience are probably plenty on their own.
Lots of (old) people really enjoy sitting down with a physical newspaper, but newspapers are still dying and almost everyone reads the news on an electronic device these days. Because cost and convenience are ultimately almost the only things that matter in the long run.
It’s taking longer than we thought! I’m not sure I agree, though, I had a 1st gen Kindle and the modern ones are way better! The battery lasts longer, they’re thinner and lighter, they have a backlight, they got rid of the dorky keyboard, the refresh rate is faster, there’s more contrast, the price has dropped from $400 in 2007 dollars to like $100 today. Thats… a lot of progress!
But maybe not fast enough. Obviously everyone has their own standards here. I think it’s still a mistake to assume that that slow progress won’t eventually eclipse the advantages paper books have.
(American Press Institute)
“Newspaper subscription numbers are still heavily leaning toward print. This is especially true for adults aged 65 and over who pay for the news they consume. About 72% of them are more likely to choose print than digital. Adults aged 18–34 like both formats equally: 42% say they’re likely to pay for print news, and about the same number would opt for digital.”
You do not speak for “people”. You definitely do not speak for this person.
I suspect most people are reading electronic news and do not have a subscription. Those newspapers have to rely on ad revenue, unless people block ads.
On a related note, you can read news on an e-reader (generally through the Calibre software, which is free).
“Eventually” is a long time. Eventually I’ll be dead and there’ll be one fewer devotee of print books. (Though I’ve had a Kindle, a Nook, and a tablet for ebooks.) But it’s looking now like this will be at least a generational shift, not an overnight change.
“Newspaper subscribers” is not the same group as “People who read the news”. I think your cites support my claim pretty well. People who buy newspapers like newspapers. But they are an increasingly small and old segment of the population.
Eventually is an unspecified period of time. But I think it’s fair to say that books are “on the way out”, even if they might not make it out for a few decades. The trends are what they are, and I don’t see them reversing. I guess they could stabilize, or there might be a sort of hipster resurgence in the future even when ebooks are indisputably better by pretty much any measurable factor (like we’re seeing with vinyl music).
I agree it’s probably at least partially a generational shift, although it remains to be seen how the tech will improve.
I generally prefer paper books. But I have to admit, e-readers have one big advantage: The search function. Sometimes I’m reading a novel, and a character will show up that I don’t remember. With search, I can check back to when the character was previously mentioned. “Oh yeah, this was Dan’s old girlfriend mentioned five chapters ago.”
Your claim that “almost everyone reads the news on an electronic device these days” has been shown to be untrue.
Oh, and people who subscribe to news outlets are not a trivial vanishing number.
“(As of 2020) it’s clear that in many countries, more people are paying. The percentage of people in the U.S. who pay for news is 20 percent (up from 16 percent last year); in Norway it’s 42 percent (up from 34 percent last year). “We’ve also seen increases in Portugal, the Netherlands, and Argentina, with the average payment level also up in nine countries that we have been tracking since 2013,” the authors note.”
Decades ago we were assured that radio didn’t have long to live. It’s not as vibrant as it was but it has adapted and is still a force. I suspect that many people will still be reading print long after the great majority of Dopers are gone.
I disagree. I don’t think your cite provides much information on where “people” get their news. It provides information on where “people who subscribe to newspapers” get their news. Those are not the same thing.
I just did a search, and found this result which says that 60% of people “often” get their news on a digital device compared to 10% who do in print (86%/32% “sometimes”). I guess we can argue over whether that really constitutes “almost everyone”. A 6-1 advantage seems pretty solid, but it’s certainly not everybody. In another few years, when it’s 10-1, or a decade after that when it’s 20-1, I’m sure we will have reached a level that we can agree is “almost everybody”, if we’re not there yet.
This quote (and your entire cite that it’s from) is about people who pay for online news. Which, yeah, is what I’m saying. Digital reading is winning, print is losing.
This is a good point, although there are various regulatory regimes that give radio additional support. There is EM spectrum that by law you can only run radio stations on, so it’s not surprising that someone runs radio stations on it. I wonder (honestly. I don’t know the answer) how many commercial radio stations there would be if the FCC let the highest bidder do whatever they wanted with it? Almost certainly fewer, but probably not none.
There’s no similar regulatory regime to prop up print media (that I can think of), so it may not be a very good comparison.
No—a frontlight.
On the other hand, if I don’t remember a name or wording but do remember approximately where in the book something was, it’s a lot easier to leaf back through a physical book.
Each format has its own advantages and disadvantages. I do a lot of reading of both kinds of books, and I don’t imagine that changing any time soon.
This shouldn’t be relevant for reading ebooks you have already bought, borrowed from a library or otherwise acquired. (Just like a physical bookstore being shut down doesn’t take away the books you already bought.)
If Amazon is down you cannot buy or update ebooks. However any ebooks you’ve already downloaded to your computer or transferred to your e-reader would still be readable.
Kobo (the second place ebook competitor) is having problems with their website. It doesn’t stop me from reading books I’ve downloaded from them.
There is a DRM issue. (Technically you are “renting” a book for an unspecified period of time.) There are ways around that, of course. Amazon’s DRM is “tougher” than that of most other ebook sellers.
I do not speak for all people, but I certainly do for the many who think books are beautiful and can involve nostalgia.