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Comment by SeanDav | Hacker News Reader

I had a brief fling with ebooks, but it was over pretty much as soon as it started. I will still break out my kindle every now and again I am sure, but I am not a fan of ebooks.

A few things pushed me away from ebooks:

- I feel that in many cases, ebook prices are just ripping me off.

- Lack of good support for all formats: why did I have to root my Kindle to have decent PDF capability? I felt that I was being pushed into a corner I did not want to go.

- Amazon having the ability to delete books I had already bought. In some cases they executed that ability. I mean, seriously, they have the ability to reach out and delete a book I paid for and may be in the middle of reading...!!!

- Propriety formats and DRM.

- I just love the sense of occasion that a real book tends to exude.

- I love reading in the bath, risky with an electronic device.

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>- I feel that in many cases, ebook prices are just ripping me off.

I think this is really informative for people who price things, not just for the ebook subject. e-book prices are usually lower than print-book prices. But people feel ripped off, because they know it took the publisher zero marginal effort to make their copy.

I mean, I've been on the other side of this, too... I was really surprised when my royalty check came, because if someone buys the e-book alone, I get a massively higher royalty than if someone buys the print book. - so if you are the sort who thinks the author should get paid more and the publisher should get paid less, then e-books are for you.

but... really, the interesting thing is just how intuitive the 'labor theory of value' is- we expect the price we pay for a thing to have something to do with the effort and capital that went into making it, and we feel ripped off when it doesn't.

To add to these:

- Even in a walled garden like Kindle, arbitrary fragmentation of the platform. Books that my Kindle device is technically capable of displaying are locked to iOS/Android Kindle app only, etc. Publishers meddling in spaces they don't understand.

- Stagnation of the eInk device market. Since the Kindle DX 5 years ago, I can "upgrade" to a much smaller device to get a backlight or snappier refresh, but my only choice for a similar or larger device lacks both, costs $800, and because it's from Sony can't do Kindle books and may already be a dead platform.

- Difficult if not impossible to lend books. This isn't just about saving money; the chances of a friend reading a book based solely upon a recommendation are much lower than the chances of them reading a book that you place in their hands, simply because of the lower initiative barrier.

That said I prefer ebooks for the majority (by volume) of my reading, more so for fiction than non-fiction. Or, factoring that a bit, I prefer ebooks for light or recreational reading and physical books for more focused or technical reading. This may be related to the limitations of eInk devices, though, since larger displays, faster refresh/annotation, and meta-reading features are more important for technical reading than for linear fiction.

"I love reading in the bath, risky with an electronic device."

Large ziploc bag. Problem solved.

Not to mention that the cheapest Fire tablet is down to about $50, which isn't all that much more than a single hardback book (bath water doesn't do those any good, either, especially with the crap "binding" that publishers use on "hardback" books nowadays).

the cheapest Fire tablet is down to about $50, which isn't all that much more than a single hardback book

Yes, but the Fire tablet does not come with any books. You still have to pay at least 1/5 of the price of the tablet just for an eBook.

That's beside the point, since if the Fire dies, you still have the books you bought on your account, whereas if your hardback book is soaked, it's gone for good.

Yes. Same thing if your house catches on fire. Your paper library is just going to be gone, while your Kindle books will still be there safe and sound.

"You still have to pay at least 1/5 of the price of the tablet just for an eBook."

No, you don't.

http://www.gutenberg.org/

It's also easy to get copyrighted ebooks for no money. You can even go through the exercise of borrowing them from libraries if your moral principles would be compromised.

Funny that you say that. These last days I've been contemplating either:

* Getting a 9.6" or larger tablet for reading "free" technical ebooks (in PDF -- I can't stand the formatting of eBooks for technical stuff).

versus

* Buying used copies of the physical books themselves.

So, based on the recommendation of a HN reader, I bought an old Nook HD+ (9" screen with 250+ ppi) and I tried yesterday. The definition is OK for reading PDFs, but the interface of the PDF reading apps is atrocious. I'm giving the Nook to someone else and I'm spending $300+ on used copies of the technical books I want to read (mostly programming / reference manuals).

eBooks for technical reference are atrocious in several counts, first of all: typography (it's very common to find an orphan heading at the end of the page with the paragraph on the next page. This drives me nuts). Next, equations and diagrams. Terrible. Lastly, navigation.

To be satisfied, I estimate I need a 12"+ screen with around 300ppi. I think the iPad Pro can deliver this, but it's a rather expensive proposition.

Hey, thanks for the report. I've been contemplating ditching my technical books for a while but never looked into it. I'm hoping I can tolerate them on an iPad mini at 326ppi, will definitely look into PDFs.

> I feel that in many cases, ebook prices are just ripping me off.

The material costs of a physical book are probably well under $0.50, and the manufacturing is done by automated machines so that should add very little to the marginal cost. Shipping and storage could very well be the biggest contribution to the marginal cost of a physical book.

The costs for a book other than manufacturing, shipping, and storing should be about the same for ebooks and physical books.

Thus as long as an ebook is maybe $1 or so less than the print edition it seems I'm getting a fair deal (or rather I'm getting as fair a deal as I'd get with the print edition...). Most Kindle books that I've been interested in were priced under the physical editions by at least that much.

> The material costs of a physical book are probably well under $0.50

It's low, but not that low. More like $4 to $5. More if printed in full color.

I'm pretty much an exclusive e-book reader anymore. They're almost always cheaper unless buying used (not something I tend to do) though the difference is very marginal, my reader is waterproof, it supports the only format I care about (ePub), and I backup all of my books on my computer anyway which removes DRM and renders moot fears of losing my books. Most important to me: I hate carrying books around.

Even so, I wish I could pay $3 extra and just get a physical and digital copy. The only two things I really miss from physical books are 1) ease of lending to others and 2) casual perusal of the collection that call to mind the experience of reading it.

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