Thursday 25 August 2011

The point of ebooks

The beauty of ebooks is not their durability, their price or their flexibility, though those are all contributing factors. The main appeal of ebooks to me is their availability. Without any extra bulk, I can carry hundreds of books with me all the time, and all I need is my phone, which I already carry everywhere. And if I find myself with a few minutes to spare, such as waiting for a train, I can pull out my book and read. They're not better than paper books, and in certain ways they're definitely worse. But that just means they're fundamentally different - a revolution, not a mere evolution.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I don't actually have hundreds of ebooks to carry.
PPS - Yet.

2 comments:

Stu said...

And the fact that when you finish one, you don't have to go shopping for a new one, just jump on the Kindle bookstore and download the next one

John said...

Exactly. I'd consider that part of the availability - not just the books you have now, but books you haven't encountered yet are at your fingertips immediately.