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Comment by adamsea | Hacker News Reader

We’ve also had centuries to improve the technology of books and I think that makes a difference.

Although the weaknesses you cite seem like problems in search of a solution. No one ever expected books to have variable font size ... why would they?

Lastly let’s recall the book five hundred years ago is dramatically different from the book of today. For example your point about liquids is now in many ways resolved by the cheapness and ubiquity of books. 500 years ago, not so much.

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On book font size, there actually is a market solution for the issue: if enough sales are expected the same book (same content) will be sold in different formats, pocket size, deluxe paperback, standard edition etc.

Same for translations, with even books with dual languages side by side.

I find fascinating how the arrival of ebook readers made us rethink how we relate to books, and a lot of annoyances got surfaced only now because there was no comparison point before. My favorite is how you cannot ignore the length of a book while reading it: you can’t pretend not realizing there’s only a dozen pages left and the story must come to an end.

While nobody expected books to have variable font sizes, the fact that ebooks do allow it to be adjusted means that people with deteriorating vision may still read them.

A magnifying glass was the original solution to this problem. They never run out of battery.

And you can use any glass with any book!

In the early days of the Gutenberg press when most were illiterate, they would gather together and the one person could read would read to the rest of the group. So, arguably, it was both easier and more inclusive for a blind person to read what there was to read then than now. At least they didn't have to rely on any special accommodations.

Yeah... and once you're no longer paying by the page there's really little upside to using a small font you have to squint at or use margins that are too narrow to easily scan the page. I have no idea how long the books I read are, but I probably read them a few hundred words per screen simply because it's way easier to keep my place. Average for a small paperback exceeds 300.

It's worth noting that it took 75 years after Gutenberg's press before some disgusted printer came up with the idea of page numbers. As the saying goes, all progress depends on the unreasonable man, who eventually becomes disgusted enough to make things change. Quality matters, pride in design and workmanship matters, and it's not at all bigoted to point out that China, which now manufactures most of the stuff in our 21st century world (or at least the components of it), has a culture of designing and producing absolute dung. We should not accept unacceptable quality just for apparently low prices.

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