I don't agree that the reason people think an e-book is worth less is overvaluating the cost of paper and ink. People feel that an e-book is worth less than a paper book because the physical experience of handling a book is worth more than the experience of reading a book on a computer or e-reader screen. The e-book has other advantages, but we're not used to those and thus it feels to many people like they're getting less.
Also, I believe that the author under-estimates other values inherent in a physical book, such as the ability to lend it to someone else, at least as long as DRM is the norm.
I value ebooks less than I otherwise would because the DRM makes them scarily impermanent. I have no faith at all that, five years from now, the ebook I buy today will still be readable. You might think I could replace my reader even if it died, but what if the reader's entire product line dies out? (That's not exactly a thought experiment: Every reader prior to the Kindle died out; the Newton died out; even very successful platforms like the Palm died out.) What if the software becomes extinct? What if the publisher goes bottom-up?
And given that the net cost of buying the book used, reading it, and then selling it used is so small (or even smaller, if it's the kind of book one can find at the library) it's hard to justify the ebook. Frankly, if it wasn't for the superior physical experience of carrying, handling, and storing an ebook nobody would bother with the things. Even the crappiest trade paperback I own has an order of magnitude longer shelf life than any DRM system.
In 2006 I purchased from Amazon the special edition of Vernor Vinge's "A Fire Upon the Deep", an Adobe eBook (the only way this special edition was available). Last year, when I went to have another look at the eBook on my latest computer (not the one I originally purchased the book on), I found that it no longer worked: I could not enable the book on my new computer because Amazon's license server for Adobe eBooks no longer worked. It took me several back-and-forth emails with Amazon's customer support to get someone to admit that once Amazon moved over to the Kindle, support for the Adobe ebooks went away (most of them didn't even seem to be aware that there were eBooks prior to the Kindle). I'd have settled for them replacing my eBook with the Kindle equivalent, but I don't own a Kindle. At the time there was no Kindle eBook reader for OS X. I eventually got a refund, but it took a lot of work to get them to even recognize that there was a problem. Additionally, I didn't want a refund, I wanted to read the special content in this special version of the book, one that is not available in paper. Given that experience, I'm a bit reluctant to purchase the Kindle version, even though there is apparently an OS X reader now.
I think the thing that most disturbs me about this whole incident is not just that a book I bought stopped working it is that I had no indication that it had become unavailable to me until the instant I went to re-read it. It had probably been inaccessible for months if not years without me knowing, with me thinking that I had the book ready for me to go read whenever I felt like, but when I went to check on something, it just didn't work. My shelves of paper books don't present me with that kind of problem.
I don't always agree with the torrent freaks, but I do believe that if you've already purchased it once then you have the right to steal a jail-broken copy.
There are two problems with this though: a) either jail-breaking or torrenting the book (if it is even available as a torrent) isn't something that the average reader would be able to figure out how to do (in my opinion) and b) it would open one up to the possibility of being charged with piracy, and the penalties for that are getting scarier all the time. I'm not convinced that the likelihood of being charged is minuscule either. Neither of these seem to be reasonable options for most people.
And in any case, I have now received a refund, so I wouldn't feel comfortable jail-breaking a copy. I may buy the Kindle version when I get an iPad though. I have a bit more confidence in the durability of that format. Not enough to start acquiring many books in it, but since this particular book is unavailable in any other way, and it is really important to me, I'll probably relax my principles for it.
I admire your patience, and this is exactly why, even now that I own an iPad, I can't make myself buy ebooks. [1] I've never called tech support for a paper book.
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[1] Except for my Safari Books subscription. As alluded to downthread: O'Reilly pretty much gets it. Their medium is impermanent, but it is also priced accordingly.
I wonder how things would work if ebook publishers would drop the idea of owning books entirely, and just go subscription-based. You'd pay a monthly fee and have DRM'd access to all the books in the catalog. Stop paying the fee, access is gone. You wouldn't have local copies, except for caching, just books viewed from the publisher's server.
Now it would be no problem that the service might go out of business in a year and take the catalog out with it. You'd subscribe while it lasts, read all sorts of books you want to read but don't care to own, and then find a new service when the old one's gone.
I dislike the experience of reading a physical book. I tried to read a textbook while I ate lunch today but I couldn't because it kept flipping shut on me. Books require one hand (or a heavy object) to constantly hold them open in order for them to be readable unless you're in the middle section of the book. The alternative is to crease the spine, which will hurt the book's resale value.
So I gave up trying to read the book at lunch and read something on my iPhone instead.
Also, I dislike lugging around the bulk of books or multiple books. I really can't wait until someone releases an eInk reader that can handle academic books and PDFs. I might get impatient and buy an iPad.
But I suppose there are some people that fetishize the smell of wood pulp and who love signaling how smart they are to the world with shelves of impressive-looking unread books, and who therefore overlook a reading experience that is superior in every other way.
I don't think people preferring reading physical books necessarily do so because it signals anything to anyone, just as people preferring the e-book experience don't necessarily do so because it signals that they're tech savvy and can afford new cool stuff.
The experience of an average physical book has gotten worse in the past few decades. In the 80s your textbook would not have flipped shut. I'm not sure just when things went from a very occasional "What the hell? How can package this cheap crap in an attractive cover?" to making it the norm -- around 2000? But it's made me less willing to buy new books.
Combine that with DRM on ebooks, and the free web wins my time by default.
It's quite possible that sometime in the future, even the near future, an ebook library on a given subject will be the equal of a paper library on that same subject. Right now that is not the case for a significant number of domains, just because some of the important books in those domains are not yet available as electronic books.
Of course, if you regard books as fungible, this might not matter to you. For some of us, it is important to have a particular book, not just a substitute. For instance, if I want clarification in calculus, I want to refer to the particular calculus textbook I have spent a lot of time studying, not to a different text. If I read 20,000 leagues under the sea, I want to read one of the recent and competent translations to English, not one of the earlier ones that had mistaken conversions from metric to imperial and entire passages left out because they offended the translator. As far as I can tell, none of the Kindle nor Gutenberg versions of this book are one of the good translations. Similarly for Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: I want the Womersley edition, and that edition isn't currently available in an electronic format. If I'm discussing history with someone I might want to cite a passage out of one of the books I've read on the subject, a particular book, like The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich or From Dawn to Decadence. Neither of those are available as electronic books. Though I guess if I never read anything but electronic books, this would not be a problem: I wouldn't want to cite them because I wouldn't have read them.
Many books I care about probably will never be converted to ebooks. They aren't old enough to be classics, but not recent enough for the publishers to feel there would be a profit in reissuing them in a new format.
And of course there is the problem of DRM. There is then the possibility that a book you thought you owned has turned into a pumpkin because because the ebook reader refuses to show it to you unless it can talk with a license server that no longer exists, because the vendor you bought the book from has switched formats. This happened to me a few years ago with an Adobe eBook I purchased from Amazon: they dropped support (or Adobe dropped them, I'm not sure) when they switched to Kindle. The fact that the transition between possessing a working electronic book and possessing a non-working electronic book can happen silently; the only way you can be sure is to regularly open up the book and to test it every time you move to a new computer or even reinstall the operating system. This does not contribute to a feeling of confidence. Until the books I care about are available in some confidence-inspiring electronic format, I will retain my paper library, despite the inconvenience of storing and moving it. The inconveniences minor compared to the benefits I derive from it. I'm not sure whether one of these benefits might be signalling to the world how smart I am; nobody has ever commented on the matter in a positive way, thought a few acquaintances have expressed opinions similar to yours.
On the other hand, if all of the books you care about actually are available as eBooks and you have some confidence that the the ones you care about retaining will continue to be available (not turn into pumpkins), or if you regard reading as a simple pastime where you don't much care which book you read next and are willing to choose from those available in electronic form, then eBooks, as they currently stand, are great. They aren't for everyone though. Not yet.
But I suppose there are some people that fetishize the smell of wood pulp and who love signaling how smart they are to the world with shelves of impressive-looking unread books, and who therefore overlook a reading experience that is superior in every other way.
I'm a voracious reader, and have an iPad, a Kindle, and shelves of (mostly read) books.
Out-of-print -- with e-books, that means it's really out of print. With a traditional book, it means you need to talk to a used book store.
Used -- you can't save money by buying your e-books used. Nor can you sell them if you decide they have no further value to you.
Unanticipated Reading -- e-books are great for unanticipated delays where you brought an e-book device, but didn't bring a book.
Outdoor use -- you can take a paperback up a mountain, onto a lake, or into the jungle knowing that if it gets wet your losses are capped at $25, and if you fall down, it won't be damaged. With the e-book, a fall or weather could result in expensive damage.
Travel -- the paperback book doesn't need to be charged, doesn't need a power plug converter, works during takeoff and landing, and doesn't immediately mark you as a person who is worth robbing.
Portability -- you can carry a lot more e-books than books.
Search -- e-books are great for reference texts, where you intend to do a lot of searching for content, rather than linear reading. paper indexes are good, but not as powerful.
Markup -- e-books have a 'highlight' capability, and some note capabilities that seem like they'd work nicely in an academic context, but I generally prefer my system of post-it notes, scribbles in the margin, and underlines, which doesn't cleanly translate to e-books.
Disaster Recovery -- e-books are replaced from backups, or not at all. books are replaced by homeowners insurance payout.
Public Image -- my iPad and Kindle both mark me as an early adopter tech guy. a book likely says nothing about me, unless the person looking has an opinion about the title in question.
Permanence -- I'm relatively confident that my paper library will endure for as long as there's somebody who values the content of the books. I'm not confident my e-book library will be usable in 10 years. (between DRM, format incompatibility, and accidental data loss.)
Images -- books currently beat e-books pretty solidly when it comes to imagery. I can't really imagine getting a Photography book as an e-book at this point in time.
Visual ease -- e-books let you adjust the font, but paper books are often (though not always) easier to read.
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Or maybe e-books are superior in every single way, and I only buy books to fetishize the smell of wood pulp, whilst filling shelves to signal to my wife, kids, pets and good friends that I'm intelligent.
Many of your points in favor of paper books exist because of flaws in the Copyright regime, not the eBook format itself. Fortunately there exists ways to (partially) circumvent the copyright regime. And hopefully market norms will evolve to be more open and permissive over time.
Books are the next vinyl records. Sure, there are some advantages to them. Enthusiasts will cling to them for a long time, mostly because of feelings of nostalgia and the desire to mark themselves as members of a particular subculture. But the advantages of digital formats are so large that books are going to be relegated to niche markets. Considering my own personal reading habits, I can't wait for that to happen.
Indeed most of your arguments in favor of books can also be made to support CDs or vinyl records over digital music.
Lastly, you forgot to mention the environmental impact of books and eBooks. Books have to be manufactured and carted around. eBook devices also have this drawback, but eBooks themselves do not.
But I suppose there are some people that fetishize the smell of wood pulp and who love signaling how smart they are to the world with shelves of impressive-looking unread books, and who therefore overlook a reading experience that is superior in every other way.
Your original statement was not set in a possible future, or in an theoretically different copyright regime.
Today, in the world we live in, books and e-books each continue to have their own strengths and weaknesses, with substantial portions of the market being better served with paper books, and a growing portion being better served by e-books, as reader technology improves.
Your comment was wrong. It was very, very wrong. And it still is.
And now I'm going to go curl up with a paper book, and fall asleep. I'm not using one of my readers, because that's a recipe for a broken reader.
Also, I believe that the author under-estimates other values inherent in a physical book, such as the ability to lend it to someone else, at least as long as DRM is the norm.