Frank,
>the pricing of product is ridiculously expensive compared to paper product
(it should
>be so much cheaper.)
The price difference is even greater when you take into account the
restriction of purchaser's rights ... ie, you don't buy an e-book, you
license it; you can't resell it to a second-hand bookshop; it's probably
illegal to give it away or lend it to a friend; and you can't guarantee that
an e-book you own and read today will still be on your shelf and available
to your children in 20 years' time.
Publishers are keen on e-books *because* they offer the chance to ratchet up
the revenue streams - the idea of a pay-per-view, for example.
As for usability ... for some reason, both e-books and their advocates
consistently gloss over research which consistently rates print ahead of
screen for readability and comprehension. (Empirical evidence: how many
times do we see Link debates get overheated because someone misread or
misunderstood something?)
But for me, the big issue remains the curtailment of my rights. I don't want
to claim some unfettered right to copy everything, nor do I advocate the
abandonment of copyright. But I do want to OWN the things I purchase...
Richard Chirgwin
"It's easy to be blinded by their essential uselessness by the sheer
achievement of getting them to work at all. In other words - and this is the
rock-solid foundation on which the [Sirius Cybernetics Corporation] is built
- their fundamental design flaws are obscured by their superficial design
flaws." Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish.
-----Original Message-----
From: Frank O'Connor [mailto:foconno1@bigpond.net.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 7 August 2001 22:20
To: Tony Barry
Cc: link@www.anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: [LINK] E-books said to be "utterly unneeded"
Mmmm ... you picked another turkey long before the market did. They
should get you into the product testing process before they go ahead
with developing these things. It'd save them a heap of unnecessary
expense. :)
On the e-book fiasco ... Mmmm. Three or four different and
incompatible standards ... all of which have tiny title ranges, I
find HTML so much more readable and accessible, the copy protection
process is a really inconvenient one, and the pricing of product is
ridiculously expensive compared to paper product (it should be so
much cheaper.) And besides that ... like many others ... I prefer
hard copy for serious relaxation and browsing.
I think they better go back to the drawing board with the concept
before its a goer with Joe Public.
Regards,
At 6:24 PM +1000 7/8/01, Tony Barry wrote:
>Linkers
>
>I hate to say "I told you so" ... :-)
>
>Tony
>
>E-BOOKS SAID TO BE "UTTERLY UNNEEDED"
>According to publishing consultant Jim Lichtenberg, the e-book business is
>floundering: "There's no standardization in technology. It's all a big
>mess. This is like having a car in 1905. It breaks down constantly, which
>means you have to travel with your own mechanic--and since there are no
>roads, there's nowhere to go anyway." Prize-winning novelist Kurt Vonnegut
>agrees: "The e-book is a ridiculous idea. The printed book is so
>satisfactory, so responsive to our fingertips. So much of this new stuff is
>utterly unneeded." But a spokesman for Random House [see Honorary
>Subscriber section below] thinks that reports of the demise of the e-book
>is greatly exaggerated, and that its potential is yet to be realized.(Los
>Angeles Times 6 Aug 2001)
>http://www.latimes.com/business/la-080601ebooks.story
>--
>phone +61 2 6241 7659
>mailto:me@Tony-Barry.emu.id.au
>http://purl.oclc.org/NET/Tony.Barry
-- ************************ Apathy is a great cause for concern ... but who cares? ************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Fri Aug 31 2001 - 03:10:03 EST